PDF Conversion Best Practices: Create Perfect Documents Every Time

Introduction

Creating perfect PDF documents is more than just a simple format conversion. This article shares professional PDF conversion tips to help you create beautiful, professional PDF documents from Markdown. Whether it's business reports, academic papers, or technical documentation, these best practices ensure you get the best output results.

Document Structure Optimization

1. Clear Heading Hierarchy

Good document structure is the foundation of high-quality PDFs:

• Use proper heading levels (H1-H6)
• Avoid skipping heading levels
• Use H2 for each major section
• Use H3-H4 for subsections

# Document Title (use only once)

## Chapter One
### 1.1 Section
#### 1.1.1 Subsection

## Chapter Two
### 2.1 Section

2. Reasonable Paragraph Division

• Each paragraph expresses one complete thought
• Use blank lines between paragraphs
• Avoid overly long paragraphs (3-5 sentences recommended)
• Use lists to break down complex information

Formatting Tips

Page Setup

Choosing the right page setup is crucial for PDF quality:

Document Type	Recommended Size	Margin Settings	Orientation
Business Report	A4	2.5cm	Portrait
Presentation	Letter	2cm	Landscape
Technical Documentation	A4	3cm	Portrait
E-book	Custom	1.5cm	Portrait

Font Selection

Fonts have a huge impact on PDF readability and professionalism:

Recommended Fonts for English Documents

• Body text: Times New Roman, Arial, Calibri
• Headings: Arial Bold, Helvetica
• Code: Consolas, Source Code Pro

Font Size Recommendations

• Body text: 10-12pt
• Level 1 headings: 18-24pt
• Level 2 headings: 14-16pt
• Footnotes: 8-9pt

Content Optimization

Image Processing

While MD-PDF-WORD primarily handles text, understanding image best practices is important:

• Resolution: Use 300 DPI for printing, 150 DPI for screen viewing
• Format: PNG for diagrams, JPEG for photos
• Size: Optimize image size to avoid overly large PDF files
• Position: Use center alignment to highlight important images

Table Optimization

Create clear and readable tables:

| Item | Q1 | Q2 | Q3 | Q4 | Total |
|:-----|---:|---:|---:|---:|------:|
| Revenue | 100 | 150 | 200 | 250 | 700 |
| Expenses | 80 | 90 | 100 | 110 | 380 |
| Profit | 20 | 60 | 100 | 140 | 320 |

Table design principles:

• Use alignment symbols to improve readability
• Right-align numbers, left-align text
• Avoid overly wide tables
• Consider splitting large tables

Code Block Formatting

Make code clearly readable in PDFs:

• Always specify the programming language for syntax highlighting
• Limit line length (80 characters recommended)
• Use proper indentation
• Add necessary comments

Multilingual Support

Mixed Language Documents

Tips for handling mixed language documents:

• Use appropriate fonts for each language
• Maintain consistent spacing
• Consider text direction (LTR/RTL)
• Test character rendering

Example:

Good: Use MD-PDF-WORD to convert Markdown documents
Poor: UseMD-PDF-WORDtoconvertMarkdowndocuments

Punctuation Usage

Context	Recommended	Avoid
End of sentence	.	。
List separator	,	、
Quotation marks	"content"	『content』
Em dash	—	——

Special Elements Handling

Headers and Footers

While Markdown itself doesn't support headers and footers, you can:

• Add title information at the beginning of the document
• Use separators to simulate footers
• Manually add them in the converted PDF

Table of Contents Generation

Methods for creating automatic table of contents:

1. Use consistent heading structure
2. Reserve space for table of contents at the beginning
3. Use tools to automatically generate TOC links

Page Break Control

Tips for controlling page breaks:

• Add page breaks between chapters: <div style="page-break-after: always;"></div>
• Avoid separating headings from content
• Control tables and lists to not span pages

Quality Checklist

Pre-conversion Checklist

• ☐ Spelling and grammar check
• ☐ Correct heading hierarchy
• ☐ Link validity
• ☐ Proper table formatting
• ☐ Code block language specified

Post-conversion Checklist

• ☐ Reasonable page layout
• ☐ Normal font display
• ☐ Tables not truncated
• ☐ Good code readability
• ☐ Overall aesthetics

Common Problem Solutions

Problem 1: Garbled Characters

Cause: Font not supported or encoding issues

Solutions:

• Ensure UTF-8 encoding is used
• Use MD-PDF-WORD (handles fonts automatically)
• Choose fonts that support your language

Problem 2: Incomplete Table Display

Cause: Table too wide

Solutions:

• Reduce number of columns
• Shorten cell content
• Use landscape orientation
• Consider splitting into multiple tables

Problem 3: Messy Code Formatting

Cause: Indentation or line break issues

Solutions:

• Use code blocks instead of indentation
• Check for mixed spaces and tabs
• Limit code line length

Advanced Techniques

1. Template Usage

Create reusable document templates:

# [Document Title]

**Author**: [Name]  
**Date**: [YYYY-MM-DD]  
**Version**: [1.0]

---

## Abstract

[Abstract content]

## Table of Contents

[Auto-generated]

---

## Chapter One: Introduction

[Content begins...]

2. Style Consistency

• Create a style guide
• Use consistent formatting conventions
• Regular review and updates

3. Batch Processing

When processing multiple documents:

• Use the same settings
• Create batch processing scripts
• Maintain naming conventions

Tools Comparison

Tool	Advantages	Use Cases
MD-PDF-WORD	Simple and fast, good multilingual support	Daily document conversion
Pandoc	Powerful, customizable	Complex document processing
LaTeX	Professional typesetting	Academic papers

Real-World Examples

Example 1: Business Report

Requirements: Professional, readable, brand consistent

Solutions:

• Use company standard fonts
• Add company logo
• Unified color scheme
• Professional chart design

Example 2: Technical Documentation

Requirements: Clear code examples, detailed explanations

Solutions:

• Extensive use of code blocks
• Add flowcharts
• Create API reference tables
• Include practical examples

Example 3: E-book

Requirements: Good reading experience, small file size

Solutions:

• Optimize image quality
• Reasonable chapter division
• Add bookmark navigation
• Screen-friendly layout

Conclusion

Creating high-quality PDF documents requires attention to many details. From document structure to format settings, from content optimization to multilingual typography, each aspect affects the final result. MD-PDF-WORD simplifies this process, but understanding these best practices helps you create more professional documents.

Remember these key points:

• Clear structure is fundamental
• Format consistency is important
• Multilingual typography needs special attention
• Choose the right tools
• Quality checking is essential