ATS guides
PDF or DOCX: which to send
The usual answer to this question is a preference dressed as a rule. The useful answer is a list of properties: what each format preserves, what each one lets a parser measure, and what changes about your report depending on which you upload. Appliora accepts both, and it is explicit about the two checks it cannot run on one of them.
The two formats are different kinds of object
A PDF describes a page. A DOCX describes a document that has not been laid out yet.
A PDF fixes everything: which glyph, which font, which coordinates, which page. Open it anywhere and it looks the same, because the layout decisions were made at export time and written down. That is its strength as a submission format and the reason its parsing problems are geometric ones - two columns, gutters, right-aligned date bands.
A DOCX describes content and intent: this is a paragraph, this is a heading, this is a table row, use this style. Where any of it lands on a page depends on the reader's fonts, margins and page size. That makes structure easy to read - a heading is explicitly marked as a heading - and makes page geometry unknowable, because there is no page until something renders one.
Neither is ATS-friendly or not. They fail differently, they are measurable differently, and the right choice depends on what happens to the file after you send it.
Side by side
The properties that change what a parser and a recruiter can do with your file.
| Property | DOCX | |
|---|---|---|
| Layout the recruiter sees | Exactly what you exported | Depends on their fonts, margins and version |
| Text layer | Present unless the file is a scan - the one fatal failure | Always present; a DOCX cannot be a picture of itself |
| Structure markers | Inferred from font size, weight and position | Explicit - headings, lists and tables are labelled |
| Page geometry | Present, so reading order is measurable | Absent, so reading order is not measurable |
| Fonts | Embedded if you export them; substituted if not | Substituted whenever the reader lacks them |
| Accidental edits in transit | Effectively impossible | Possible, and agencies do it routinely |
| Reading order (14 points) | Scored | Reported as unavailable, weight redistributed |
| Format traps (6 points) | Scored | Reported as unavailable, weight redistributed |
Appliora accepts .pdf and .docx up to 15 MB.
Choosing, in practice
Four situations cover almost every application.
- The advert names a format. Send that one. This is not a parsing question, it is an instruction-following question, and the person opening your file will notice.
- The advert says nothing and you apply directly. PDF. Export with fonts embedded, check the text layer once, and the document the employer opens is the document you designed.
- A recruitment agency is in the middle. DOCX, usually. Agencies routinely restyle a CV onto their own letterhead before sending it on, and a DOCX saves them retyping - which means fewer transcription errors in your dates and job titles.
- A portal asks you to paste or to "import" your CV. Neither, and read on.
The case where the answer is neither
Some portals do the parsing in front of you. That is an opportunity, not an inconvenience.
When an application system asks you to upload a file and then presents a form pre-filled with your name, your last three employers and your dates, it has just shown you its own parse of your document. Read every field before you correct it. A job title in the wrong box, an employer missing entirely, a date range that has slid onto the wrong role - each of those is a specific, observed parsing failure on that specific system, which is information no checker can give you.
When the portal asks you to paste your CV as text instead, paste plain text and then fix the line breaks. A pasted CV loses all formatting, which is fine, and it will also lose the structure your headings carried, which is not - so keep the section words on their own lines. Headings a parser recognises covers which words survive.
The parts of the file that are not the CV
The filename and the metadata travel with the document and are scored under File hygiene (3 points).
- Filename. A name a recruiter can file without renaming carries your surname. Appliora flags a filename with no word longer than 4 characters, or with no letters at all - which is how a file called "Cv jr mb .pdf" gets caught.
- Draft markers. "final v3 (1)" is the classic. It is not fatal and it is not a good first impression.
- Document title metadata. Exporters leave titles like Document1, Untitled, or the name of the template you downloaded. Appliora matches those patterns anchored to the start of the title, so a designer whose actual job title contains the word Template is not accused of using a stock file.
- Size. Anything over 5 MB is reported as uncomfortable, and on a CV it is almost always an uncompressed photograph.
None of this is heavy - File hygiene carries 3 points - but it is the cheapest section of the report to clear completely, and unlike the content checks it takes one minute rather than one evening.
Questions people ask
If the advert does not say which format, which should I send?
PDF, in most cases. It preserves the layout the recruiter opens, it carries the page geometry that makes reading order and format traps measurable, and it cannot be edited accidentally in transit. Send DOCX when the advert asks for it, when a recruitment agency asks for it, or when you know the file will be reformatted before it reaches the employer.
Does Appliora score a DOCX lower than a PDF?
No. Two checks cannot be measured on a DOCX at all because they need per-glyph coordinates, and they are reported as unavailable rather than scored as zero. Their weight is redistributed across the checks that could be measured, so a DOCX is scored on what is actually knowable about it.
Which checks cannot be measured on a DOCX?
Reading order and format traps. Both depend on where each glyph is drawn on the page, and a DOCX has no page geometry - it describes a flow of content and lets the reader lay it out. Between them they carry 20 of the 100 points, which is why they are redistributed rather than ignored.
Is there a case where neither format is right?
Yes: a portal that asks you to paste your CV into a text box, or that offers to build a profile from your file and then shows you the fields it filled. Paste plain text, then read every field it produced. That screen is the closest thing to a free view of how one specific employer's system parsed you.
Does the filename matter?
It matters to the human who files it and it is scored. Appliora's file hygiene check looks for a filename carrying a real name rather than initials or a draft marker, and for document metadata that has not been left as the exporter wrote it - a title like Document1 or Resume Template tells a recruiter more about the tool than the person.
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