WPD → PDF is the archive route for WordPerfect folders: each file is laid out as printed pages with selectable text, so a decade of letters and forms stays readable without WordPerfect installed.
From real runs
| Element | Result | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| Page size and margins | Kept | US Letter files stayed 612 × 792 pt and the Dutch chapter stayed A4 (595 × 842 pt). |
| Text | Kept | Text is real PDF text, so a reviewer can search a 1980 government report for a contract number or copy a paragraph out of it. |
| Tables and form layouts | Kept | The EPA form's bordered label-and-answer tables printed as drawn, with bold-italic labels and wrapped answers inside the cells. |
| Colour clip-art and charts | Kept | Colour clip-art of a tiger and a dragon embedded in a WordPerfect test file rendered in full colour, and a depth-datum diagram printed at its placed size. |
| Equations | Lost | A petroleum engineering chapter that WordPerfect prints on 6 pages came out on 4, because every Equation Editor box was left out. |
| Running headers and chapter numbers | Changed | Header text came through, but a right-aligned 'Chapter: 1' block came out as '1Chapter:' and section numbers restarted, so 3.1 printed as 1. |
| Fonts | Changed | Times New Roman and Arial are replaced by metric-compatible Liberation fonts, so line breaks rarely move; old printer fonts such as 'Roman 10cpi' fall back to Noto Sans and can reflow a page. |
| Greek symbols in WordPerfect 5.x files | Changed | In a WordPerfect 5.1 Greek test file, capital terminal sigma came out as the lunate sigma Ϲ, a different letter. Proofread Greek passages in 5.x files. |
US Letter files stayed 612 × 792 pt and the Dutch chapter stayed A4 (595 × 842 pt).
Text is real PDF text, so a reviewer can search a 1980 government report for a contract number or copy a paragraph out of it.
The EPA form's bordered label-and-answer tables printed as drawn, with bold-italic labels and wrapped answers inside the cells.
Colour clip-art of a tiger and a dragon embedded in a WordPerfect test file rendered in full colour, and a depth-datum diagram printed at its placed size.
A petroleum engineering chapter that WordPerfect prints on 6 pages came out on 4, because every Equation Editor box was left out.
Header text came through, but a right-aligned 'Chapter: 1' block came out as '1Chapter:' and section numbers restarted, so 3.1 printed as 1.
Times New Roman and Arial are replaced by metric-compatible Liberation fonts, so line breaks rarely move; old printer fonts such as 'Roman 10cpi' fall back to Noto Sans and can reflow a page.
In a WordPerfect 5.1 Greek test file, capital terminal sigma came out as the lunate sigma Ϲ, a different letter. Proofread Greek passages in 5.x files.
We converted our WordPerfect sample (31 KB) with Office engine on 2026-10-20. It took 7.3 s and produced a 86 KB PDF file, 2.8× larger than the input. The engine raised 3 warnings, listed below.
Input · sample.wpd · 31 KB
31,331 bytes
Output · sample.pdf · 86 KB
PDF 1.6, 9 pages, selectable text (LiberationSerif, LiberationSerif-BoldItalic, LiberationSerif-Bold), 0 image objects
LibreOffice
soffice --headless --convert-to pdf --outdir archive *.wpdOne soffice process handles the whole folder. Files that fail to load are skipped with a message on stderr, so compare the input and output counts afterwards.
WordPerfect Office
File → Publish to PDFPrints equations, pleading line numbers and redline exactly as WordPerfect shows them; recent versions also offer PDF/A for records retention.
The HTTP API and the MCP server run the exact engine this page uses (Office engine); the response carries the same warnings the web converter shows. Check support first with GET /api/v1/pairs?from=wpd&to=pdf.
curl -X POST https://filetypeconverters.com/api/v1/convert \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $FTC_API_KEY" \
-F "file=@input.wpd" -F "from=wpd" -F "to=pdf" \
--output output.pdfFiles from WordPerfect 5.0 and 5.1, from 6.0 through X9 (which share one file format) and from WordPerfect 2 and 3 for Mac opened in our tests. Files from WordPerfect 4.2 and earlier have no version header and are refused, because a text file renamed .wpd looks the same and loses its quoted words.
No. Pleading paper in WordPerfect is a page border or watermark that the importer skips; a pleading-paper test file came out blank, so we stop and report an empty result. For a filing copy, publish the PDF from WordPerfect or rebuild the pleading in Word.
Yes, as formatting: redlined words print in red and struck-out words print with a line through them. The PDF does not carry them as review comments or markup that a PDF reader can list.
The usual causes are missing equations, which free up space, and font substitution, which shifts line breaks. Compare the page count with a WordPerfect printout before treating the PDF as the record copy.