How to use the HWP viewer
- Drag an .hwp or .hwpx file onto the drop zone above, or click Choose files.
- After a short analysis inside your browser, the document opens page by page, just like in the Hangul word processor. Use the page thumbnails on the left to jump around, and the zoom buttons at the bottom to change the size.
- Open the Edit tab to change text, tables and formatting, then click Save as HWP or Save as HWPX to download the edited file.
- If a document is hard to render, the Quick text extraction tab shows the body text in reading order so you can always read the content.
HWP is the file format of Hangul (also called Hancom Office Hangul), the word processor used by Korean government offices, schools and many companies. If you work with Korean organizations, apply for programs in Korea or receive school notices as a parent, you will sooner or later get an HWP file. This page lets you read it on any computer, including Mac, Chromebook and Linux, without installing anything.
How it works
An HWP 5.0 file is a Compound File Binary (CFB) container, the same container format older Microsoft Office files use. Inside are separate streams for document information, the body text of each section (usually zlib-compressed), embedded images and a preview. HWPX, the newer format, is a ZIP archive of XML files based on the Korean national standard KS X 6101 (OWPML).
The viewer uses rhwp, an open-source engine written in Rust and compiled to WebAssembly (MIT License). It parses paragraph and character styles, tables, images, headers and footers, lays out each page the same way Hangul does and draws every page as an image. The editor is rhwp-studio from the same project, hosted on this site. Everything, including the engine, runs inside your browser tab.
Why this is safer than upload-based converters
Many free conversion sites upload your file to their server, convert it and send back the result. Your document then sits on someone else's disk, and you have no way to check when it is deleted. InstantDocView runs entirely in your browser's memory. There is simply no code that sends your file anywhere. You can verify this by opening the Network tab of your browser's developer tools before opening a file: no upload request appears. This matters for HR paperwork, contracts and internal reports that must not leave your organization.
What is supported
- HWP 5.0 and HWPX: documents saved by Hangul 2002 and later
- Editing: text input and corrections, table editing and formatting, saved as HWP or HWPX
- Password-protected files: enter the password and the file is decrypted inside your browser; the password is never transmitted
- Fonts: proprietary Hancom fonts are not distributed, so text is shown with similar open-source fonts. Line breaks can differ slightly from the original
For tips on fixing documents that look broken, see the related guides below.
Frequently asked questions
Can I really open HWP files without Hancom Office?
Yes. This page reads the HWP and HWPX file formats directly in your browser, so no program needs to be installed. If a document is hard to render, use the Quick text extraction tab.
Can I edit an HWP file and save it?
Yes. Open the Edit tab to change text, tables and formatting, then click Save as HWP or Save as HWPX to download the file. Editing also happens entirely in your browser.
Is my HWP file uploaded or stored on a server?
No. The file is processed only in your browser's memory and is never sent to any server. Closing the tab removes it from memory.
Does it work on a phone?
Yes. Modern mobile browsers such as Chrome on Android and Safari on iPhone can open HWP files with the Choose files button. On small screens the text extraction tab is often easier to read.