Want a clean, professional resume but only have WordPad? No problem — you can create a strong, ATS-friendly CV without advanced tools.

Whether you’re applying for your first job or updating a long career, simplicity wins. Here’s a practical, step-by-step guide to designing a readable, share-worthy resume in WordPad — fast.

Why WordPad works:

• Lightweight and available on most Windows PCs.
• Supports basic formatting that recruiters and applicant tracking systems (ATS) can read.
• Easy to export to PDF using Print → Microsoft Print to PDF.

Quick setup (5 minutes):

• Open a new document and set margins to ~1 inch for a neat frame.
• Choose a clean font: Arial, Calibri, or Times New Roman. Use 11–12 pt for body and 14–16 pt for your name.
• Save early: use .rtf or .docx (if available) so formatting is preserved, then export to PDF before sending.

Simple, effective layout (use these sections):

• Contact — name, phone, email, LinkedIn URL (one line).
• Professional Summary — 2–3 lines that highlight results and role fit.
• Experience — company, role, dates (right aligned using tabs), 3–5 bullet points with measurable impact.
• Education — degree, school, graduation year.
• Skills — list of relevant skills or keywords for ATS.

Formatting tips for WordPad:

• Use bold for section headers and job titles; avoid underlines and excessive italics.
• Use WordPad bullets for concise accomplishment lines — keep each bullet short and results-focused.
• Align dates to the right by inserting a Tab between the job title/company and the date; adjust using the ruler if needed.
• Avoid images, text boxes or complex tables — these can break in ATS and when exporting to PDF.

Example snippet (paste into WordPad and adapt):

John Doe
(123) 456-7890 • john.doe@email.com • linkedin.com/in/johndoe

Professional Summary
Experienced project coordinator focused on process improvement and cross-team communication. Reduced delivery times by 20% through workflow redesign.

Experience
Project Coordinator		Jan 2020 – Present
• Led cross-functional team initiatives that cut lead time by 20%.
• Implemented tracking dashboards to increase on-time delivery from 75% to 92%.

Education
B.A. in Business Administration — State University, 2019

Skills
Project Management • Process Improvement • Excel • Communication

ATS-friendly best practices:

• Keep standard section headers (Experience, Education, Skills).
• Use keywords from the job description naturally — sprinkle them in your bullets and summary.
• Stick to common fonts and simple formatting so parsing tools can read your content.

Polishing & exporting:

• Proofread for typos and consistent spacing; read aloud to catch awkward phrasing.
• Use File → Print → Microsoft Print to PDF to create a share-ready PDF copy.
• Check the PDF on mobile and desktop to ensure alignment and spacing look good.

Final checklist before you share:

• One clear contact line
• Results-driven bullets (numbers where possible)
• Keywords from the posting included
• Saved as PDF and tested for readability

Want feedback? Paste your WordPad resume into a comment or DM and I’ll share quick edits to sharpen it. If this helped, save it, share it, or tag a friend who needs a simple resume refresh.