How to open an HWP or HWPX file without Hancom Office
Got a Korean .hwp file that Word and your phone can't open? Turn it into a PDF in your browser in a minute, read or translate it, and see what gets dropped.
Updated
Short answer: open HWP to PDF, drop the .hwp or .hwpx file and press Download PDF (or Open in a new tab to read it right away). The text, tables and images are laid out on pages, and the document never leaves your device. You don’t need Hancom Office, an account or an app.
What an HWP file is
HWP is the document format of Hangul (Hancom Office), the word processor used across Korean government, schools and many companies. HWPX is its newer XML-based version. If you deal with a Korean university, an employer, a visa or immigration office, or a Korean colleague, sooner or later a notice, form or contract arrives as .hwp.
Microsoft Word, Google Docs, Pages and most phones can’t open it. Hancom does offer a free viewer and paid apps, but installing software to read one document is often more than you want, and on a work or school computer you may not be allowed to.
Steps
- Open HWP to PDF in any modern browser, on a computer or a phone.
- Drop the
.hwpor.hwpxfile onto the page, or tap to choose it. - Wait for Converting…. The first time, the Korean font (about 6 MB per weight) is downloaded and then cached.
- When Your PDF is ready appears, press Download PDF, or Open in a new tab to read it.
You can also Download plain text or Copy text, which is handy for translation or for pasting into an email.
What the PDF keeps and what it drops
Kept: paragraphs, bold and italic, font sizes, tables (including merged cells) and embedded images, on pages of the original size. Korean text, including hanja, is set in Noto Sans KR, and Latin text in Noto Sans.
Not carried over: headers and footers, footnotes and endnotes, text boxes, shapes, equations and multi-column layouts. The original fonts are replaced. Nibbo lists everything it skipped under Not carried over, so you know when to ask the sender for the original PDF.
For a pixel-exact copy, the sender can print the document to PDF in Hangul, which is worth asking for when the layout is legally important.
Reading it in your language
If you don’t read Korean, convert the HWP to PDF first, then open it in Translate PDF. Or copy the plain text into your usual translator. For an editable copy, PDF to Word turns the PDF into a .docx.
When conversion fails
- “Password-protected”: remove the password in Hangul and save again, or ask the sender.
- “Distribution document”: read-only HWP files are encrypted on purpose and can’t be converted. Ask for a PDF.
- Very old HWP 3.0 files use a different format; they need to be re-saved in Hangul.
- Blank boxes instead of characters: a few rare symbols aren’t in the bundled fonts. The rest of the text is fine.
FAQ
Is my document uploaded?
No. The file is read and laid out inside this browser tab, on your device. Nothing goes to a server, which matters for contracts, applications and ID documents.
Does it work on iPhone and Android?
Yes. Open the page in Safari or Chrome, choose the file from Files or Downloads, and open the PDF in a new tab.
Can I edit the HWP file?
Not in HWP format. Convert it to PDF, then to Word with PDF to Word, and edit the .docx.
What’s the difference between HWP and HWPX?
HWPX is the newer, open XML-based version that recent Hangul releases use more and more. Both convert the same way.