Guide
PDF or Word? The same resume, parsed both ways
Every answer to this question online is somebody's opinion, because answering it properly means running both files through a parser and reporting what came back. So that is what this page does. The result is not the one the question expects: the format is not what decides it.
The measurement
One resume, saved six ways
The same document, same words, same person, saved in every format this checker reads. Each one put through the same parser, scored out of 98. A higher number means more of the document survived into the record a recruiter searches.
| Saved as | Score | What it lost |
|---|---|---|
| Markdown | 98/98 | |
| 95/98 | Missing links (3) | |
| OpenDocument | 95/98 | Missing links (3) |
| Plain text | 95/98 | Missing links (3) |
| Rich text | 95/98 | Missing links (3) |
| Word | 80/98 | Page header (16), Missing links (3) |
The highest score on that list is Markdown, at 98/98, and it is the only file carrying a portfolio link. PDF, OpenDocument, plain text and rich text tie behind it at 95/98, losing the same three points for the link none of them has. Word scores 80/98, and that gap is the only thing on this page worth explaining. Converting a resume into Markdown is its own question, and measured on the same files it turns out to hide as much as it fixes.
The gap
Word did not lose those points for being Word
The whole gap is one finding, page header, charged at 16 percent. It is the only deduction the Word file carries that the PDF does not, so it accounts for the distance between 80/98 and 95/98 on its own. That file puts the name, email and phone number in the header region, where a Word template naturally puts them. Many parsers discard the header before they start reading, so the contact details never arrive and the record lands with nobody attached to it. Move that line into the body and the file is still a .docx: nothing about the container was ever the problem. It runs the other way too, which is the part that settles the question. A PDF laid out in two columns scores 68/98, and being a PDF saved it from nothing.
Rich textused to trail here, and the reason it stopped is worth knowing. That file marks its headings by making the text bold, and until 30 September 2026 this checker read a heading only from a heading style. So it scored a clean rich text file as a resume with no work history, and this page said bold is not a heading. The same product’s importer and its plain-text reader had always read a line like WORK EXPERIENCE as a heading, so the scorer was the one part that disagreed. It reads the words now: when none of a file’s headings names a section, a line holding nothing but a section name counts as a heading, bold or not. In a file that styles some section names as headings and only bolds the others, the bold ones are still read as plain text, so set them all the same way.
Failure modes
Each format fails differently, and that is the real difference
Not which format is safer, but which mistakes each one lets you make. The same resume again, this time with one deliberate layout mistake in each file, worst first.
| File | Score | What it cost |
|---|---|---|
| PDF: scanned, or exported as an image | 0/98 | No text layer (100) |
| Word: contact details in a text box | 65/98 | Text box (18), Page header (16), Missing links (3) |
| PDF: two columns | 68/98 | Column layout and reading order (28), Missing links (3) |
| Word: laid out with a table | 69/98 | Page header (16), Table (13), Missing links (3) |
One asymmetry is real and it is the only one that favours Word. PDF has a failure with no equivalent on the other side: a file exported as an image, or scanned from paper, has no text layer at all and scores 0/98. Not a low score, nothing. A Word file cannot do that, because it stores the words rather than a picture of them. The worst any Word file manages here is 65/98, and it still has a name and an email in it.
The answer
What to actually send
Send what the job posting asks for. That instruction exists because somebody knows what their system accepts, and ignoring it is a worse risk than either format. Where nothing is specified, send a PDF exported from a word processor, never one scanned or saved as an image, because it carries its own fonts and cannot reflow on somebody else’s machine.
Then stop thinking about the format, because it is worth far less than the layout. Moving your contact details out of a page header is the difference between 80/98 and 95/98 on this document. Choosing between the two formats, with the layout already clean, is worth nothing at all: they tie. A two-column layout is charged at 28 percent and a text box at 18. Every one of those is a decision about where things sit on the page, and none of them is a decision about PDF or Word.
These numbers come from files in this project’s test set and are checked on every run, so a change to the scorer fails the build rather than quietly changing a number here. The sentences around them are not checked that way, so they are reread whenever a number moves. The scoring method is published, and you can run the same parser on your own file in the ATS resume parser test. If the layout is the thing that costs you points, the guide to why resumes fail lists the specific choices that do it.
Questions
Can an ATS read a PDF, and does the format matter?
Can an ATS read a PDF resume?
Yes, when the PDF has a real text layer, which a PDF exported from Word or Google Docs has. The same resume saved as a PDF scored 95 out of 98 here. The PDF that fails is one saved as a picture of text, such as a scan: it has no text to read and scores 0.
Does a resume have to be a PDF?
No. Send what the job posting asks for. Where it does not say, a PDF is the safer default because it keeps its fonts and cannot reflow, but Word is not a risk in itself: the same resume scored 80 as a Word file only because its contact details sat in a page header, which cost 16 points, as it would in any format that has one.
Does resume format matter?
Much less than layout does. One resume saved in six formats scored between 80 and 98, and the lowest of those came from a page header, not the format. A single layout choice costs more than any choice of format: a resume laid out in two columns scored 68 as a PDF.