Asked for an .hwp but you have an .hwpx? Converting it for a Korean school, office or job application

Nothing needs rewriting. HWPX and HWP are two file types from the same Korean word processor, Hangul (한글) by Hancom, and converting just moves the same document into the other container. If you have never met either format before, start with our explainer on HWPX, then come back here.

What is an HWPX file, and how is it different from HWP?

Why they want .hwp and not .hwpx

According to Hancom's FAQ, a fresh install of Hangul saves as HWPX by default, so whoever made the file may never have chosen the format. The trouble starts on the receiving end. We did not find English-language posts about this, so here are Korean users describing it on Clien, a large Korean tech forum.

Whether it "just worked" depends on the recipient's Hangul. In practice the request for .hwp comes from one of three places.

The greyed-out file is ordinary browser behaviour. When an upload field lists the types it accepts, most operating systems dim non-matching files in the picker and will not let you select them (MDN documents this). The file is not broken. Its type is being filtered out.

The second row is common at public offices and large companies. A comment under a Clien post about the government's switch to HWPX:

By Hancom's FAQ, HWPX opens from Hangul 2010 SE+ onwards, with backward-compatibility fixes from 2014 VP. The machines that fail are on 2007 or older, or on builds of 2010 and 2014 from before those updates. If one of those is at the other end, you are the one who adapts.

If you have Hangul: Save As, then pick the .hwp file type

Most PCs at Korean schools and offices run Hangul in Korean, so look for those labels. Names in the file type list vary between versions, so go by the extension in brackets. Hancom calls HWPX "한글 표준 문서", so an entry with 표준 ("standard") in it is the HWPX one, not the one you want.

If Windows is hiding extensions, the two files look identical. On an upload page that only takes .hwp, the new one is the one you can select.

This does not work on Hangul 2007, which cannot open HWPX at all. Hancom's advice for 2007 users is to open the document in 2010 or later, save it as HWP there, and edit that copy. In an office, that often means thirty seconds of a colleague's time.

What still looks different on Hangul 2007

Once it is an HWP, Hangul 2007 can open it. Hancom says the 5.x format has been in use from Hangul 2002 through 2014 and 2018. But a shared format does not mean shared features. Anything the sender used that the older program does not have will not appear properly there.

One Hancom FAQ spells this out for documents made in Hangul 2010 SE and opened in 2002 to 2007. Apart from the newer features, it says, there are no major problems, and it lists the exceptions:

That FAQ was written for 2010 SE, so later features are not listed, and the gap only grows with each release. Before you submit: if track changes was on while revising, accept the changes and turn it off before saving, and if you used picture effects, decide whether the document works without them.

On Hancom's developer forum, Hancom's reply about its developer conversion tool adds that meta tag information may be deleted when converting HWPX to HWP. The two formats do not hold exactly the same information.

No Hangul, or a work PC where you cannot install it

The hardest version of this problem is a PC whose Hangul cannot open HWPX and where you are not allowed to install a newer one. A question from Clien's Q&A board:

Hancom's FAQ tells DRM users to resave as HWP, which assumes a Hangul that can. The asker later found that Hancom's free converter only goes from HWP to HWPX, and Hancom's FAQ still describes it that way (30 files at a time). Realistic options on a machine like that:

• Ask whoever sent the form, or the office that posted it, for an .hwp version.
• Use another computer with Hangul 2010 or later and Save As there.
• Use an online converter. Most upload your file to their server, so think twice with an application that contains your passport or alien registration number.
• Convert it inside your browser without uploading, as described next.

Converting in the browser, without Hangul

The HWPX to HWP converter on this site is built for computers without Hangul, Macs included. Instead of sending your document anywhere, it downloads a document engine (about 8MB) into the browser and converts there. The engine is downloaded once per tab.

• You can add several files at once. Each result keeps its name with the extension changed (application.hwpx becomes application.hwp).
• The output is HWP 5.0. It cannot produce files for Hangul 97 or 3.0.
• If the HWPX has a password, a password box appears and the HWP gets the same password. It does not remove passwords.
• Fonts are carried by name only. If the recipient lacks a font, Hangul substitutes another.
• When it finishes, the engine reads the new HWP back and compares the page count with the original. If they differ it says so, and if the engine reports elements it could not carry over, you see how many.

That check exists for a reason. The engine is open source (rhwp), and its issue tracker records a case from April 2026 where Hangul 2020 rejected an HWPX saved as HWP as a damaged file, and a 9-page document read back as 209 pages (issue #178). The engine's documentation says HWPX documents now pass through a mapping step for Hancom compatibility before being written as HWP. We have not opened the results in a real copy of Hangul 2007 ourselves, so for a submission you cannot take back, open the HWP once in something that reads HWP, such as Hancom's Hangul viewer (한글 뷰어), and check the pages and tables.

It works in a phone browser too, but above 40MB of files in total you will see a warning that the browser may run out of memory.

Convert HWPX to HWP in your browser

When they only need the text, or want HWPX instead

Some Korean job sites want answers pasted into text boxes rather than a file. If your cover letter is in an .hwpx and this computer has no Hangul, you do not need to convert anything. The HWPX to text tool here takes one .hwpx, shows the body text and gives you a copy button. Formatting and pictures are dropped, and table text comes out without the table layout, so a form built from tables needs tidying after you paste.

As public bodies move to the open format, some now ask for .hwpx instead. For that, use the HWP to HWPX tool, or pick the file type with 표준 in its name in Hangul. Requirements vary, so read the line in the notice that names the file format first.