A text-based PDF is the safer default: it keeps the layout you approved and carries a text layer. Send DOCX when the posting asks for it, or when your PDF's text layer is damaged.

What should the file be called

Your name, the word résumé or CV, and optionally the role. The name is for the person who files it; the parser reads the contents.

Do spaces in a file name cause problems

Rarely, and a hyphen costs nothing, so use one. Some systems rename the file entirely when it is uploaded.

What files can I check here

PDF, DOCX, TXT, a photo of a page, or pasted text. The report prints what was read in every case.

Where does my file go when I export

DOCX is built inside this browser and never leaves it. PDF is rendered on our server and returned to you, and that route writes nothing to disk or to a database.

Guide · ATS

Which file to send, and what to call it

Two small decisions at the end of the work. Here is when PDF is right, when DOCX is right, and what the file name is actually for.

ConxfolioPublished 2026-09-12

— the parser reads the contents, people read the name.

Two small decisions sit at the end of the work, and both are easy to get right once you know what each one is for.

The format

A text-based PDF is the safer default. It preserves the layout you approved, it looks the same on every machine, and it carries a text layer that a parser can read. Send DOCX when the posting asks for it, when an application system rejects PDFs, or when your PDF's text layer has been damaged in export and the extraction comes back with broken characters.

Never send a PDF that is really a picture. A scanned or photographed page has no text layer at all, and a parser receives nothing. The guide to scanned files covers what to do if that is the only copy you have.

What the file name is for

A person. Somebody downloads it into a folder with forty others, and "Ada Fennimore Résumé.pdf" is findable while "resume-final-v3.pdf" is not. Include your name, the word résumé or CV, and the role where you are applying for something specific. Keep it short, and use a hyphen rather than relying on spaces surviving every system.

What the file name is not for is the parser. It reads the contents. No amount of naming repairs a file whose text extracts in the wrong order.

What happens to your file here

When you export from the résumé builder, the DOCX is built inside this browser: the document and its container are written in the page, and nothing is uploaded. The PDF is different. It is rendered on our server so the typography matches the design exactly, and that route writes nothing to disk or to a database. Both exports are free, and neither carries a watermark.

What the checker accepts

The ATS résumé checker takes a PDF, a DOCX, a text file, a photograph of a page, or text you paste. A PDF is read in this browser first, and a page that has no text layer is recognised locally, so scanned bytes do not need to leave the device. Where the browser cannot read a file at all, the file itself is sent to be extracted.

Check the file you are actually sending

Not a copy made for the occasion, and not the text of the document pasted in. The export is where damage happens, so the exported file is the thing to test. Read the line that reports the words, lines and recognised headings, then compare it with the page. The guide to the checker explains the rest of the report.

One habit worth keeping

Re-export and re-check after any design change. Switching designs rewrites no content, and it does change where text falls and how the file is built, which is exactly the kind of change that can move a parseability row without changing a word you wrote.

Other formats, and why they cause trouble

Pages, ODT and Google Docs native files often cannot be opened by the system receiving them. An RTF loses structure. A ZIP of several files is an obstacle rather than a portfolio. Where a posting does not specify, PDF is the safest thing to send, and where it specifies, it specifies.

A link to a document in a cloud drive is a special case: it depends on permissions that may expire and on the reader being willing to sign in. Attach the file, and use a link only in addition to it.

Version names, and the accident that follows them

A file called resume-final-v3-USE-THIS.pdf reaches an employer at least once in most careers. Keeping versions inside the résumé builder rather than as files avoids most of that: the versions live in this browser with the document, and what you export is named for sending rather than for your own filing. Check the name of the file in the attachment field before you press send, which is the last moment anything can be fixed for free.

What the posting says wins

Where a posting names a format, a size limit or a naming convention, follow it exactly, including the capitalisation if it gives one. Application systems reject on those rules before a person is involved, and an instruction on the posting is the only rule in this subject you can be certain applies to the employer in front of you.

Check the file you will send

Upload the exported PDF or DOCX itself, not a copy made for the occasion, and read what came back.

Open the ATS checker Export from the builder

Questions

PDF or DOCX: A text-based PDF is the safer default: it keeps the layout you approved and carries a text layer. Send DOCX when the posting asks for it, or when your PDF's text layer is damaged.
What should the file be called: Your name, the word résumé or CV, and optionally the role. The name is for the person who files it; the parser reads the contents.
Do spaces in a file name cause problems: Rarely, and a hyphen costs nothing, so use one. Some systems rename the file entirely when it is uploaded.
What files can I check here: PDF, DOCX, TXT, a photo of a page, or pasted text. The report prints what was read in every case.
Where does my file go when I export: DOCX is built inside this browser and never leaves it. PDF is rendered on our server and returned to you, and that route writes nothing to disk or to a database.

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.