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Create and Convert PDF Files

Create PDFs in the Foxit PDF Editor Application Window

Create a PDF by Drag-and-Drop

This method is best for small and simple files. Drag and drop any supported file (Microsoft Office, image, HTML, or TXT file) that you want to convert onto Foxit PDF Editor icon or Foxit PDF Editor application window, and the file will be converted to PDF and displayed in Foxit PDF Editor. Then you can click the Save button(or choose File > Save) to save the converted PDF file.

Tip: When creating a PDF from a Microsoft Office file, you will need to specify the conversion settings. For more information, please refer to "Office to PDF Settings".

Create a PDF from a File

You can create a PDF from Microsoft Office, image, HTML, or TXT files.

Tip: Foxit PDF Editor  provides two ways for you toconvert Microsoft Office files to PDFs, using the local service or Foxit Online Service. Before conversion, you can also go to File tab (or Foxit PDF Editor in the menu bar) > Preferences > Create PDF, and choose how you would like to convert Microsoft Office files to PDFs and specify whether or not to show the Office to PDF settings dialog box during conversion. If you choose to use the local service, please make sure that you have installed Microsoft Office 2016 or higher on your Mac device. If you choose to use Foxit Online Service, Internet connection is required during conversion.

Create PDFs from Multiple Files

Foxit PDF Editor allows you to easily merge files of different types into a single PDF file, or convert them into separate PDFs. When creating PDFs from multiple Microsoft Office files, please make sure that you have installed Microsoft Office 2016 or higher on your Mac device.

Convert and Combine Multiple Files into a Single PDF

Convert Multiple Files into Separate PDF Files

Create a PDF from a Blank Page

Create a PDF Form from an Existing File

You can create a PDF form directly from an existing file during which Foxit PDF Editor will detect and recognize the form fields automatically, with no need to use the Run Form Field Recognition command.

Create a PDF from a Template

Foxit PDF Editor provides various designed templates including letters, resume, invoice, and more. You can choose the desired template and quickly create a PDF from it.

Note: An Internet connection is required to use the feature. 

Create PDFs in Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint

Foxit PDF Editor enables you to create professional PDF files from Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, and PowerPoint), automatically keeping links, hyperlinks, outline and more of the source files in the created PDFs.

After you have installed Foxit PDF Editor, Foxit PDF Editor add-in will be loaded in the Foxit PDF tab in your Microsoft Office applications, which allows you to quickly create PDF files and change your conversion settings in just a few clicks. To use this feature, you need to sign in or activate Foxit PDF Editor.

Create PDFs

Customize Conversion Settings

Before creating PDFs using the Foxit PDF Editor add-in in Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, you can click Foxit PDF > Advanced in Microsoft Office applications to customize your PDF conversion settings.

Create a PDF from Scanner

Foxit PDF Editor allows you to create a PDF directly from a paper document using your Image Capture (ICA) scanner driver.

Scan with Custom Settings

Scan with a Configured Preset

If you have saved your previous scanning settings as presets or configured scanning presets, all your presets will be displayed in the From Scanner drop-down list in the Convert tab. You can choose any of the presets to scan a paper document to PDF with just one click.

Configure Scanning Presets

Create a Scanning Preset
Manage Scanning Presets

Print to PDF

When you have installed Foxit PDF Editor on your device, you can use the Print to PDF feature to save a document as PDF from any application that uses the system print dialog in your Mac device.

Create a PDF Using the Print to PDF Feature

Create and Modify your Customized Default Settings

Options of Default Settings for PDF Conversion

General Tab

Images Tab

Specify the image conversion settings. For more information, please refer to “Compress Images”.

PDF Standards Tab

Select a PDF standard as needed from the menu under which there is the corresponding description for your reference.

Watermarks Tab

Headers/Footers Tab

Security Tab

The security feature of PDF gives you exceptional control over PDF files. You can choose Password Protection and Certificate Protection from the drop-down menu to protect the converted PDF files with passwords or certificates. For more information, please refer to “Protect PDFs with Passwords or Certificates”.

Convert and Export PDF Files

Convert PDF Files

Convert a PDF to Other Formats

Foxit PDF Editor allows users to convert a PDF to Microsoft Office, image, HTML, text file, or XML 1.0 file. If the document is an accessible PDF, you can save it as accessible text which can contain assistive information (such as alternate text descriptions) for images or multimedia objects in the PDF. Accessible text is often used for a braille printer by which accessible text can be imported and printed out as a form that vision-impaired people can use.

Conversion Settings

When converting a PDF file to other formats, you can click the Settings button adjacent to the selected output format in the Save As dialog box (or click the Settings icon  beside the output format in the Export window under the File page) to specify the conversion settings. Options vary based on the type of the output file you have selected.   

Options for Microsoft Office, XML Spreadsheet, RTF, and TXT

Options for HTML

Options for PNG, JPEG, JEPG 2000, TIFF, and BMP

Export Selected Area to Other Formats

You can select an area with the Select Text and Image command in PDF and export the content in the area to formats including Microsoft Office, HTML, or Rich Text.

Export All Images in the PDFs

Foxit PDF Editor enables you to export all images in your document to separate image files in JPEG, JPEG 2000, PNG, TIFF, or BMP format.

Tip: To export one image in your PDF, select the Select Text and Image command and right-click the image and choose Save Image As.

Create and Customize a PDF Portfolio

PDF portfolios are a combination of files with different formats such as Microsoft Office files, text documents and image files. Foxit PDF Editor lets you quickly create and customize a PDF portfolio.

Create a PDF Portfolio

You can use Foxit PDF Editor to quickly create a blank PDF portfolio or a new PDF portfolio from any file. After creation, you can also add more files/folders, create folders, delete files/folders and more within the PDF portfolio.

Create a Blank PDF Portfolio

Create a PDF Portfolio from Files

When creating a new PDF portfolio (not blank), you can create a Table of Contents (TOC) which will be displayed following the cover sheet of portfolio. Before that, you need to select the Create a Table of Contents in Cover Sheet when creating a PDF portfolio option in File in the Ribbon (or Foxit PDF Editor in the menu bar)> Preferences > Create PDF.

The headings of the TOC generated is made up of the names of folders (including the subfolders) and files in the portfolio, arranged in an order that the files and folders are displayed in the portfolio. For a PDF portfolio with TOC, if any file/folder is added or removed, you can click Regenerate TOC in the Portfolio tab to update the TOC; for a PDF portfolio without TOC, you can click Regenerate TOC to create a TOC.

Customize a PDF Portfolio

When a PDF portfolio is created and opened in Foxit PDF Editor, the Portfolio tab will be displayed for you to customize a PDF portfolio.

Add Files and Folders in a PDF Portfolio

Remove Files and Folders in a PDF Portfolio

In the Layout or Detail view mode, do any of the following to remove a file or folder from a PDF portfolio.

Extract Files or Folders from a PDF Portfolio

You can extract files or folders in the PDF portfolio and save them in your local disk. Steps are as follows:

Validate and Create PDF/A-, PDF/E-, and PDF/X-compliant Files

With Foxit PDF Editor, you can validate PDF contents against PDF/A, PDF/E, and PDF/X standard, and create industry compliant PDF files for archiving, engineering, and print production.

Validate PDFs against PDF/A, PDF/E, or PDF/X Standard

Convert PDFs to PDF/A, PDF/E, or PDF/X

Convert PDFs to PDF/A, PDF/E, or PDF/X Using a Profile

Save PDFs as PDF/A, PDF/E, or PDF/X

When reading a PDF document in Foxit PDF Editor, you can save the PDF document as a copy which is compliant with PDF/A, PDF/E, or PDF/X standard on your local disk. Steps are as follow:

Remove PDF/A, PDF/E, or PDF/X Information

OCR PDF Files

OCR (Optical Character Recognition) is a software process that enables images or printed text to be translated into machine-readable text. OCR is most commonly used on scanned PDF documents to make the text searchable or editable.

Quick OCR

You can click Home > Quick Recognize or Convert in the Ribbon > Convert > Quick Recognize to recognize all pages of a scanned or image-based PDF with default or previous settings by one-click.

Recognize Text

Foxit PDF Editor can detect whether a PDF file is scanned or image-based and make corresponding suggestions to initiate OCR when you open or try to edit a scanned or image-based PDF. When you open a scanned or image-based PDF file, a message will pop up in the top right corner to inform you that the PDF contains some unrecognized text. You can click Recognize Text in the message box to initiate OCR. By default, when you try to edit the text in a non-editable PDF using the Edit Text command, Foxit PDF Editor will display a prompt message including options for you to recognize text with the default or custom settings. You can also enable Foxit PDF Editor to run OCR automatically when you try to edit text in a non-editable PDF. To configure the automatic OCR settings, choose File in the Ribbon (or Foxit PDF Editor in the menu bar) > Preferences > Editing, and specify the following options as needed.

Except for initiating OCR based on the prompt messages, you can also run OCR anytime to recognize the image-based text in a PDF. Steps are as follow:

Find and Correct OCR Suspects

After recognizing image-based or scanned text in the PDF file, you can pick out and correct the text or characters that are uncertain.