Write a document and export a searchable PDF directly

The usual route to a simple PDF involves opening a word processor you did not want to open, fighting its default styles, and exporting. For a one-page letter, a short report, or a notice, composing directly is faster and produces a cleaner file.

What direct creation avoids

The document creation tool writes a PDF containing real text objects. That distinction matters more than it sounds, because several common routes do not:

• Printing to PDF from a viewer sometimes rasterises the page, producing an image with no selectable text.
• Screenshotting and assembling images always does.
• Exporting from a design tool may convert type to vector outlines, which look perfect and cannot be searched.

A file with a genuine text layer can be searched, copied from, indexed, read aloud by a screen reader, and converted onward. One without is a picture of a document. Since both look identical on screen, it is worth checking after export by selecting a word.

Structure the document properly

The temptation with a rich editor is to make a heading by setting text to 18 points and bold. It looks right and it is not a heading — it is large bold body text, and nothing in the file knows otherwise.

Use real heading levels, in order, without skipping. This gives you:

• a navigable outline in readers that show one
• correct structure for assistive technology
• consistent spacing without manual adjustment
• a document that converts cleanly if it later becomes HTML or EPUB

The same applies to lists. A real bulleted list is understood as a list; a paragraph starting with a hyphen is not.

Decide the page setup first

Page size, orientation, and margins should be settled before you write, because changing them later reflows everything and moves every page break you had checked.

• A4 or Letter. Choose based on where the document will be printed. They differ enough that a document laid out for one will shift on the other.
• Margins. At least 20 millimetres. Printers cannot reach the edge, and binding or hole punching eats the left margin.
• Orientation. Portrait unless the content is genuinely wide.

Details that make it look finished

Small things separate a document that looks produced from one that looks typed:

• Consistent spacing. Let the styles handle space between paragraphs rather than pressing return twice.
• One typeface, two weights. Mixing three fonts is the fastest way to look amateur.
• Body text at 10 to 12 points. Smaller is a strain; larger looks like a handout.
• Generous line spacing. Around 1.3 times the type size reads far more easily than single spacing.
• Left-aligned body text. Justified text without hyphenation creates rivers of white space.
• Real quotation marks and dashes, not the straight typewriter versions.

Add the document furniture

Once the content is written, a document usually needs identifying information on every page: a title, a date, a page number, sometimes a reference or a classification.

Add those after the content is final, using the header and footer tool, for the reason set out in the headers guide: these are resolved to fixed text when applied, so applying them before the content settles means redoing them.

Choosing between the authoring tools

You want	Use
A one-off document with formatting in front of you	Direct creation
A document revised often, reviewed by several people	Markdown
A templated document generated from data	HTML with print styles
Precise layout and design control	HTML with print styles

The Markdown guide covers why plain text sources are easier to maintain over time, and the HTML guide covers what print stylesheets control. Direct creation is the right answer when the document is a one-off and you would rather write it than mark it up.

Check before sending

Reopen the exported file and confirm four things: text is selectable, page breaks fall sensibly, headings appear in the outline, and the metadata does not carry anything you did not intend. That last point catches the common case of a document title inherited from a template, which is exactly the kind of detail that quietly tells a recipient more about your internal filing than you meant to.