Google Docs' built-in PDF export is plain and unstyled. Pretty PDF transforms your documents into professionally formatted PDFs with custom templates.
Free — 3 PDFs per month. No credit card required.
Google Docs exports to PDF exactly as-is. Whatever styling you have in the document — the default Arial font, the standard margins, the basic heading sizes — that is exactly what appears in your PDF. There are no professional templates, no branding options, and no way to polish the output. The File > Download > PDF option is a faithful reproduction of your editor view, nothing more.
For internal drafts and quick notes, this is perfectly fine. But when you need to send a proposal to a client, share a report with stakeholders, or distribute a document that represents your organization, "exactly what the editor looks like" is rarely good enough. Google Docs was designed as a collaborative writing tool, not a publishing platform. Its default styling reflects that — functional and readable, but not polished or professional.
You can spend time manually formatting your Google Doc to look better — changing fonts, adjusting margins, adding headers and footers — but this formatting is fragile. It does not transfer between documents, it varies from author to author, and it adds significant manual work to every document you produce. What you need is not better manual formatting. What you need is a template system that elevates your content automatically.
Apply professional templates to your Google Docs content and transform drafts into polished deliverables.
Business-ready formatting with clean borders, structured layouts, and professional typography. Ideal for proposals, client deliverables, and executive summaries that need to look polished and authoritative.
Scholarly formatting designed for research papers, technical documentation, and academic writing. Proper heading hierarchy, citation-friendly spacing, and a layout that meets professional publication standards.
Editorial polish for articles, blog posts, and long-form content. Balanced whitespace, elegant typography, and a reading experience that feels like a professionally published piece.
Clean whitespace and understated design for content that speaks for itself. Generous margins, subtle typography, and a layout that puts the focus entirely on your words.
Modern dark aesthetic with light text on a dark background. A contemporary look for design-forward documents, portfolios, and content that benefits from a bold visual identity.
From any Google Doc to a professionally styled PDF in three steps.
Navigate to the Google Doc you want to convert. Open it in Chrome so the Pretty PDF extension can access the page content. Works with any Google Doc you can view — your own documents, shared files, or published pages.
Click the Pretty PDF icon in your browser toolbar. The extension captures your document content — headings, paragraphs, lists, tables, images, and all formatting — ready for template styling.
Select from five professionally designed templates — Clean, Minimal, Corporate, Academic, or Dark Mode. Click Generate PDF. Your styled document downloads in seconds, ready to share, print, or archive.
Each template applies professional typography with embedded fonts, proper spacing, and polished layouts.
Editorial polish with balanced whitespace and elegant typography. Perfect for articles, essays, and any long-form content that needs to look published.
Clean whitespace and understated design. Generous margins and subtle typography that puts the focus entirely on your content without visual distractions.
Business-ready with clean borders and structured layouts. The go-to template for proposals, reports, and any document that needs to convey professionalism.
Scholarly formatting with proper heading hierarchy and citation-friendly spacing. Designed for research papers, technical docs, and academic writing.
Modern dark aesthetic with a contemporary look. Ideal for design portfolios, creative documents, and content that benefits from a bold visual presence.
Google Docs gives you no way to apply consistent branding across your PDF exports. Every document looks slightly different depending on who wrote it and what formatting choices they made. For teams that care about brand consistency, this is a problem that scales with every new document.
Pretty PDF's Pro features solve this with document profiles. Add your company logo, set custom headers and footers, define branded colors, and save these as a reusable profile. Every document your team generates through Pretty PDF comes out with the same professional, branded look — regardless of how the original Google Doc was formatted.
This is especially valuable for client-facing documents. Proposals, project updates, research summaries, and reports all carry your brand identity automatically. No manual formatting, no style guide enforcement, no inconsistency between team members. Set up your brand profile once and every PDF matches your standards.
Google Docs' built-in PDF export and Pretty PDF serve different purposes. Choosing the right tool depends on what you need the PDF for.
| Google Docs Export | Pretty PDF | |
|---|---|---|
| Styling | Plain — exports exactly as the editor shows | Professional — 5 designed templates with embedded fonts |
| Templates | None | Clean, Minimal, Corporate, Academic, Dark Mode |
| Branding | Not available | Logo, custom headers/footers, branded colors |
| Typography | Uses document fonts (default Arial/Roboto) | Professional embedded fonts (Fraunces, Instrument Sans) |
| Best for | Quick drafts, internal notes, casual sharing | Client deliverables, proposals, polished reports |
| Speed | Instant (built into Google Docs) | Seconds (click extension, choose template, generate) |
Use Google Docs' built-in export when you need a quick PDF of a draft or internal document where styling does not matter. Use Pretty PDF when the document is going to a client, a stakeholder, or anyone who will judge your work partly on how it looks. The content is the same — the presentation makes the difference.
Free tier, no credit card. 3 PDFs per month with all templates included.
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