Convert plain text to a Word .docx file
Turn a .txt file or pasted text into a properly formatted Word document, with paragraph breaks, bullets and ALL-CAPS headings recognised.
- Runs in your browser
- Files are never uploaded
- Free, no account
More than renaming the extension
Word will happily open a .txt file, and the result is one long unstyled block
with every hard line break preserved as an actual break. Reflowing that by hand is the tedious
part, and it is what this page removes.
The output is a real .docx with proper paragraph objects, so text wraps to the page, spacing is consistent, and the document behaves like something that was written in Word.
The rules it applies
| In your text | Becomes |
|---|---|
| A blank line | A new paragraph |
| A single line break inside a block | Joined into flowing text — or kept, if you tick the option |
| A short ALL-CAPS line on its own | Heading 2 (optional) |
| A block where every line starts with -, * or • | A real Word bulleted list |
| Windows or classic Mac line endings | Normalised — CRLF and CR are both handled |
| Tabs | Preserved inside the paragraph text |
When to keep every line break
The default joins lines within a paragraph, which is right for prose that was hard-wrapped at some fixed column width — the classic 72-character email or README convention. Turn the option on when the line endings carry meaning:
- Poetry and song lyrics, where the line is the unit.
- Postal addresses and letterheads.
- Log excerpts, stack traces and console output.
- Scripts and screenplays.
- Anything already laid out with deliberate alignment.
With the option on, each line becomes a soft break inside one paragraph rather than a separate paragraph, which keeps the spacing tight and lets the whole block be styled as a unit.
The ALL-CAPS heading rule
Plain-text documents have used capitals for section titles since long before word processors. A line is treated as a heading when all of these hold:
- it stands alone, with no other lines in its block;
- it is 80 characters or fewer;
- it does not end in
.:;,!or?; - it contains at least one letter and is entirely in capitals.
Turn it off if your text shouts for other reasons — product codes, legal disclaimers, chat logs. Nothing is guessed silently: what you see in the block counts under the result tells you how many headings were detected before you open the file.
Encoding and special characters
Files are read as UTF-8, so accented Latin, Greek, Cyrillic, CJK and emoji all survive intact into the .docx. Unlike a PDF, a Word document does not embed fonts by default — it references them by name — so whatever the reader has installed will render the text. That is why full Unicode works here and not in our PDF renderers.
Control characters other than tab and newline are stripped, because Word rejects them outright and a document that will not open is worse than one missing an invisible byte.
Good sources for this page
- Notes taken in a plain-text editor that now need to be circulated.
- A transcript or dictation export.
- Output from a command-line tool that has to go into a report.
- An old
.txtarchive being brought into a document management system. - Anything copied out of a terminal, a chat window or a code comment.
If the text uses Markdown conventions — # headings, **bold**,
pipe tables — use Markdown to Word instead; it understands
all of them. For a PDF rather than a Word file, Text to PDF. To
check length before you convert, Word counter.
Questions
How does it decide where paragraphs end?
A blank line starts a new paragraph, which is the convention almost every plain-text document follows. Single line breaks inside a paragraph are joined into flowing text unless you tick “Keep every line break”.
When should I keep every line break?
For poetry, addresses, log excerpts, song lyrics or anything where the line endings are meaningful. For prose that was hard-wrapped at 72 columns, leave it off so the text reflows properly in Word.
What does the ALL-CAPS heading option do?
A short line entirely in capitals, on its own, with no full stop, is treated as a section heading and given Word’s Heading 2 style. It is the usual convention in plain-text reports, and you can turn it off if your text shouts for other reasons.
Are bullets recognised?
Yes. A block where every line starts with -, * or • becomes a real Word bulleted list rather than literal dashes, so it renumbers and indents correctly when you edit it.