An iPhone photo arrives as a HEIC file your website won’t accept. A client sends a PDF when you need images. The accountant wants a spreadsheet as XLSX, not CSV. Needing to convert files is one of those small daily jobs that eats time, and the usual answer, a random free converter website, means uploading your files to a company you know nothing about.
That is why we built Onvert, a free file converter that works entirely in your browser. This guide covers what it handles, why converting files without uploading them matters and a few tips for getting good results.
Why uploading files to converter sites is a risk
Many online converters upload your file to their servers, process it and send it back. For a holiday photo that may not matter. For contracts, invoices, customer lists or client work, it is worth thinking twice about where those files go and how long they are kept.
Onvert does every conversion inside your browser, using your own device. Your files are never sent to Madexify or anyone else. There is no account, no email required and no watermark. It is the same principle we recommend for any business data: share it only when you need to. See multi-factor authentication and password managers for other simple ways to protect your business information.
What Onvert can convert
Images
HEIC and HEIF (straight off an iPhone), JPG, PNG, WebP, GIF, BMP, AVIF, TIFF and SVG. You can resize and set the quality on the way through, which is handy when preparing photos for your website or social media.
PDFs
Turn PDF pages into JPG or PNG images, pull out the text, merge several PDFs, split them or rotate pages. You can also combine images into a PDF.
Documents
Convert Word files (DOCX) to PDF, a web page, plain text or Markdown. This works best on straightforward documents.
Spreadsheets and data
Move between CSV, XLSX, XLS, TSV, JSON, ODS and HTML, the formats accountants, developers and online store platforms all seem to ask for.
How to use it
- Drop the files in. One file or fifty. Onvert sorts them into groups and works out what each one can become.
- Pick the output format for each group, and set the quality or size if it matters.
- Convert and download files one at a time, or the whole lot as a single ZIP.
Try it now with Onvert, our free file converter.
What it doesn’t do (and why)
- PDF to editable Word. Doing this properly means rebuilding the layout, and no free browser-based tool does it well. PDF to plain text is available and is often the quicker route.
- Video and audio conversion. Not in this version, because it would mean a very large download and could crash phones on bigger files.
- Pixel-perfect complex layouts. Text, headings, lists and tables carry across well from Word to PDF, but complex templates won’t be identical. For those, Word’s own “Save as PDF” is better.
Because everything runs on your device, very large files depend on your device’s memory. On an older phone, convert in smaller batches.
Tips for website images
If you are converting photos for your website, convert HEIC to JPG or WebP, resize them to a sensible width and keep file sizes small. Large images are one of the most common reasons websites feel slow. See why your website feels slow and real photos vs stock images.
Want a website that handles this for you?
Madexify builds fast, easy-to-manage websites for small businesses across Pakenham, Officer, Beaconsfield, Berwick, Narre Warren, Cranbourne, Clyde and Bunyip, and custom tools like Onvert for businesses that need them. See our web design and development services, or contact us to talk about your website.
This article is part of our Website Security and Tech Guide. Browse all our guides on the guides page.
