Making a PDF editable in Hangul

When you need this conversion

Typical cases are a notice or an application form that arrived only as a PDF, a school letter you adapt a little every term, or source text that must be pasted into Hangul for translation or summary. A PDF is made for viewing, so changing its words directly is awkward.

Conversion eases that problem. It is not a way to copy the exact look of the PDF into Hangul, though; it brings the text out so that you can edit it, and knowing this up front keeps your expectations realistic.

For instance, if you reuse the same form each term and change only the dates and the event details, convert it once and afterward copy the Hangul file.

How .hwp and .hwpx differ

Hangul files come in two kinds. .hwp is the older format, while .hwpx is the newer open one, a bundle of XML files packed together. This tool produces .hwpx, which opens in Hangul 2014 and later.

If the person receiving it insists on .hwp, open the result in Hangul and use Save As to change the format. Without Hangul you can look at the file in a free viewer or a web editor, and if you only need the words, a Word or plain-text conversion is simpler.

Step by step, from conversion to checking

Press ‘Choose a file’ or drop the PDF onto the page. If you need only part of it, choose ‘Page range’ under ‘Pages to convert’ and list pages like 1-2, 4. Then press ‘Convert to HWPX’ and ‘Download’ to save the .hwpx file.

Open it in Hangul next to the PDF and compare them. Each PDF page starts a new page in the Hangul file as well, so the two are easy to match page by page. The paper size and orientation follow the first page of the PDF.

• Open the PDF and enter a page range if needed
• For a scan, pick the recognition language
• Press ‘Convert to HWPX’, then ‘Download’
• Open it in Hangul and compare with the PDF

How the text is carried over

A sentence that the PDF broke across several lines becomes one paragraph, with a single space between the pieces as Korean spacing expects. Body text is set at 10 points and justified, and a line clearly larger than the body becomes a bold heading. The font is one of Hangul’s standard families.

That lets you rework the text paragraph by paragraph, but fine letter spacing and exact line positions from the PDF do not follow. It is more accurate to think of the result as a draft to edit than as a copy.

If the split between headings and body looks odd, adjust the size and weight directly in Hangul. The conversion infers the structure, so how well it fits differs from document to document.

What becomes of tables, pictures and stamps

Hangul tables are not created. Each table row turns into one line and the cells are separated by four spaces, so the order of the cells survives but the grid does not. Official forms made of boxes and check marks can look quite different.

Pictures, stamps, signatures and shapes are not copied. If they matter in your document, put them back in Hangul. When it is possible, asking whoever issued the form for the original .hwp is the cleanest route.

If the document is a scan, turn on recognition

A PDF made by scanning paper holds pictures rather than letters. Pick the language of the text under ‘Text recognition for scanned pages’ and the tool reads the pictured words into editable text. English is selected to begin with, so for Korean also select 한국어 (Korean).

Recognition is never perfect. Letters overlapped by a stamp, faint print and very small type are easy to misread, so compare every name, number and date with the original PDF one by one.

What to check afterwards

Compare numbers, dates and the spelling of names first, then look for paragraphs that merged or split where they should not have. List numbers and bullets arrive as text, but their indentation may differ, so tidy them in Hangul if needed.

With a long document, look at a few middle pages as well as the first and last. If only some pages went wrong, you can convert just those with a page range and compare again.

If some characters look garbled, the PDF may hold an unusual embedded font. A workaround is to copy just that passage from the PDF and paste it into Hangul by hand.

Privacy and file handling

Reading the PDF and building the Hangul file both happen in your browser and nothing is uploaded. Your original PDF is not changed. That suits school records and application forms you would rather not send elsewhere.

This site runs independently and has no connection to the company that makes Hangul. Before you use the result for an official submission, check the format the receiving office requires.

If you need to send the edited document back as a PDF, choose the print function in Hangul and save as PDF. Check at the same time that the fonts are installed on that computer.

A sensible order for polishing the result

Do not submit a converted document straight away; tidy it in three passes. First compare the content with the original, then clean up the formatting of paragraphs and headings, and finally rebuild any tables or pictures in Hangul.

Following this order avoids fixing the same mistake several times. The slowest part is usually recreating tables, so for a paper full of tables it is better to ask for the original Hangul file from the start.