How to convert Markdown to PDF without garbled Chinese characters

Updated 2026-10-26

Short answer: most Markdown exporters render the page in a browser engine and print it. If the fonts on that machine have no Chinese glyphs, you get empty boxes (□), question marks or mixed fallback fonts. md-to-pdf-word typesets the document with Chinese fonts embedded in the PDF, so it looks the same everywhere.

Why Chinese breaks in PDF exports

Missing glyphs. The PDF uses a font without Chinese characters, so they show as boxes or disappear.
Fonts not embedded. The PDF only names the font; a reader without it sees a substitute — or nothing.
Browser layout. Print-to-PDF splits table rows across pages, ignores Chinese line-breaking rules and adds browser headers.

Convert in three steps

Open the Markdown to PDF converter and drop your .md file. If it uses local images or a .bib file, drop the whole folder so relative paths like images/chart.png still work — the page lists anything missing before you convert.
Choose a style (Business is a safe default) and, if you like, a table of contents under More options.
Click Convert and download the PDF. A typical report takes under 20 seconds.

What you get

Chinese, Japanese and Korean text with the right punctuation and line breaking, mixed cleanly with Latin text and numbers.
Every font embedded — the PDF is identical on Windows, macOS, phones and printers.
Tables that stay inside the page and continue across pages, numbered figures and equations, page numbers.

Chinese font sizes and fonts

You can use the traditional Chinese size names directly:

[重点内容]{size=四号 font=黑体 color=red}

size= accepts 初号 to 六号 (and 12pt, 16px); font= accepts 宋体, 黑体, 楷体 and 仿宋. See the writing syntax for everything else.

Common questions

Do I need to install fonts? No. Fonts are part of the PDF.

Will my file be stored? Only for the conversion; it is deleted automatically after 2 hours, or immediately when you click Delete from server.

Can I get a Word file as well? Yes — choose PDF + Word.