Conxfolio beside a Microsoft Word résumé template
A word processor with a template gallery and a tool built around résumés are different objects. Here is what Microsoft's own page says its templates are, what this side is, and where each one fits.
— the honest half is where we lose.
A Word template and a résumé builder end up in the same search result and they are not the same kind of thing. One is a document in a word processor. The other is structured content with designs that render it. Both are reasonable, and the choice comes down to whether you want to control the layout yourself or have something read the document back to you.
What follows about Microsoft's side comes from their own template page, checked on 12 September 2026 and linked below, so you can read it rather than take a characterisation of it.
What Microsoft's page says it offers
The résumé templates page describes them as free customizable resume templates, organised by job category. The workflow it gives is to select a template in Word for the web, double click to start editing online, replace the placeholder text, and then save, print and share the résumé as a PDF. It also offers Copilot to polish, enhance or edit a résumé using AI. That is the source: Microsoft's résumé templates page.
What that page does not state is whether a Microsoft account or a Microsoft 365 subscription is needed to use the editor, so this page does not claim anything about it either way.
What a template in a word processor is good at
Complete control. Everything a word processor can do is available: any column arrangement, any spacing, any typographic decision, plus tracked changes and comments if somebody else is helping you. If you want a layout that exists nowhere in any gallery, build it yourself in Word and nothing will beat it for freedom.
The costs are the ones freedom brings. The document does not know it is a résumé, so nothing tells you that the header you put your email address into is routinely skipped by extractors, or that the two-column table you built will interleave when the text is pulled out. Changing your mind about the design means moving text by hand. And there is nothing to check the result against.
What this side is
The résumé builder holds the résumé as structured content and treats the design as a rendering of it. Import the DOCX you already have and it is read into fields, with everything it found shown beside the text it came from so you can correct it first. The same content then renders into any of the 37 layouts in the gallery, 21 of them marked ATS-safe, and switching between them rewrites nothing.
The other three tools read the same material. The ATS checker scores the text the way an extractor gets it and prints its own arithmetic. The cover letter builder assembles a letter from evidence in the résumé and traces each proof paragraph to the line it came from. The portfolio builder turns the same roles and projects into a page.
Side by side
| Word template | Conxfolio | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | A document in a word processor | Structured content rendered into a design |
| Layout freedom | Complete | 37 authored layouts, with type and spacing controls |
| Change design later | By hand | One click, the words untouched |
| Reads an existing résumé | Opens the file | Reads it into fields and shows what it read |
| Parsing check | None | Score, arithmetic, fixes priced in points |
| Language model | Copilot offered on their page | None, anywhere |
| Export | PDF, and the DOCX you are editing | PDF and DOCX, no watermark |
| Collaborative editing | Yes | No |
| Cost | The page says free templates | Free |
Where the Word template wins
Three places, plainly. A layout nobody else has, which a gallery cannot give you. A document somebody else needs to edit alongside you, because Word does collaborative editing and this does not. And a résumé you already have in Word that is passing checks, where moving gains you nothing at all.
Where this shape pays
The moment you apply for a second job. One master document, a targeted copy beside it, a single-column render for a portal and a designed one for a person, all from the same words. Keeping two is one control, described on keeping two résumés at once, and neither copy can edit the other.
It also pays if you do not own Word. The DOCX here is assembled in the browser and was measured making no network requests, which is the whole of exporting a DOCX without Office.
Check both yourself
Export your Word résumé as a PDF and run it through the checker. Read the line that says what it read, in words, lines and recognised headings. If those numbers match your page, the template is fine and you should keep it. If they are far short, the layout is losing your résumé before any employer's software sees it, and the format guide names the habits that cause it.
Then import the same file here and read the review. Whatever it read wrongly is a preview of what somebody else's parser will read wrongly, which is worth knowing about a document you are about to send.
Bring the Word document you already have
Import a DOCX, correct what was read, and render it into any of 37 layouts. Free, no account.
Open the résumé builderCheck the file firstQuestions
- Are Microsoft's résumé templates free
- Their own page describes them as free customizable resume templates and offers editing in Word for the web. What a full Microsoft 365 subscription adds is a separate question that page does not settle, so this page makes no claim about it.
- Can I move a Word résumé into Conxfolio
- Yes. Import the DOCX and the review lists every field beside the text it came from, so a bad reading is corrected before anything enters the editor.
- Can I go back the other way
- Yes. Export DOCX from here and open it in Word or anything else that reads the format. The file is assembled in your browser.
- Which is better for an unusual layout
- Word, if you want to build one yourself. A word processor will do anything you ask, including layouts that scramble when the text is extracted, which is the reason the check on this site exists.
- Does Word check a résumé against parsing rules
- It is a word processor, so no. Microsoft's page does offer Copilot to polish and edit a résumé using AI, which is a different job from measuring what a parser recovers.
- Does either use a language model
- Microsoft's page offers Copilot for editing. Conxfolio calls no model anywhere, and the readers, the score and the letter are deterministic code.
Conxfolio is a free set of four career tools: a résumé builder with 37 rendered layouts, an ATS résumé checker that prints its own arithmetic, a cover letter builder that traces every proof paragraph back to the line it came from, and a portfolio builder with 20 authored designs. There is no account to create, nothing is held back for a paid plan, and no language model is used anywhere in the product, so the readers, the score and the letter are deterministic code you can check.