Export your CV as a Word file (DOCX) — which Swiss CV tools can?

The tools’ landing pages compared

All captured on 4 September 2026 at the same window width, so the comparison is fair.

1. 

   1. SwissJobs.appOur app

   Add your current CV and a Swiss advert, AI writes one tailored to it. Free to start, no signup.

   SwissJobs.app →

2. 

   2. lebenslauf.ch

   Free, but you write the whole CV yourself in an empty form. Every line from scratch, no AI help.

   lebenslauf.ch →

3. 

   3. cvswiss.ch

   AI-written Swiss CV in five minutes.

   cvswiss.ch →

4. 

   4. cv-easy.ch

   Done in 10 minutes, CHF 12 one-off.

   cv-easy.ch →

5. 

   5. lebenslaufapp.ch

   CV and cover letter, free to try.

   lebenslaufapp.ch →

The tools compared directly

As of 4 September 2026. Every figure for another tool comes from that tool's own site; "n/s" means it was not readable there — not that the feature is missing. Our row comes from the code and from walking the live flow.

The distinction the whole answer turns on

Two very different things travel under the name «Word CV template», and confusing them sends you looking in the wrong place. One is an empty .docx with placeholders you fill in yourself. The other is a generator’s output: a tool has already written your document and hands it to you as a Word file at the end, with your text, your typeface and your accent colour inside it.

Empty templates are plentiful and free in Switzerland, all the way up to the official careers portal. Finished documents as .docx are close to unavailable. That is why the question is worth asking at all: if you have built a CV in an online tool and now want to pass it on in Word, the list is very short.

SwissJobs.app

PDF and Word sit side by side above the finished document, in the same paid tier, and both produce the version you see on screen — including the accent colour you picked. Neither carries a watermark, at any tier. The same holds for the motivation letter.

Our free line sits in an unusual place and we would rather state it plainly than bury it. The editor opens without an account; call the page anonymously and a complete document in Swiss format is already on screen before anything asks for an address. Building and previewing stay free. Downloading is where that stops: it needs an active entitlement — the seven-day trial, then CHF 15 a month or CHF 95 a year. The free account costs an email address and no card, and its budget runs to five documents a day and ten per rolling week.

What separates the tool from a template gallery is the beginning, not the end. You open a live advert in our own search, and the posting’s own text is what the CV gets written from, in about a minute. From there the document is yours: overwrite any line directly, or type what you would rather dictate than retype — «bring the second role down to three lines» is enough. The file format is the last decision, not the first.

And since the look travels with a Word file, here is the arithmetic rather than a round number: two layouts, three typefaces, nine accent colours — 2 x 3 x 9 = 54 design variations of a single Swiss format. None of them is a drawn template; they are combinations you mix yourself. For real visual variety, a template vendor serves you better.

cvswiss.ch

The closest Swiss competitor does export DOCX — just not at the tier most people enter through. Their pricing page describes the CHF 5 one-off as «1 professional PDF download», and the word DOCX does not appear on that page at all. It does appear in the text their own web application ships: «DOCX download available with the subscription», and in the list of what the subscription unlocks, «Word export (DOCX)».

In practice: CHF 5 buys a PDF there, and the Word file costs the CHF 15 monthly plan. That is a pricing tier like any other — it is simply invisible if you read only the pricing card, which is why it is here.

Their free tier beats ours at one point, and that belongs in the same answer: creating and previewing costs nothing, and a free download stays available, carrying a watermark across the page. If you want a real file without spending a franc and can live with the watermark, they get you there and we do not.

Their template page also gives away a Word file with no account at all — «as an editable Word file (.docx) and as PDF examples», free and without a watermark. They explain on the same page why that is not a contradiction: «our paid product is the AI generator». The empty template is free; the filled-in document is not.

bewerbung.ch — the one that says no on the record

The clearest answer to this question anywhere in the Swiss landscape sits in bewerbung.ch’s FAQ. Asked «Can I also download my CV as a Word file?», the provider answers, in German: they offer no Word download, they want to keep the application process simple, they believe editing in Word leads to formatting frustration, and sending Word files carries a certain security risk.

That is a position rather than a missing feature, and it is the strongest counter-argument to this page’s own question. We take it seriously further down rather than waving it away.

For context on the rest: the standard account is free but carries a single layout marked with their logo and three credits for their application AI. One month of Premium costs CHF 20, three months CHF 50, neither renewing automatically. The output is a PDF in every case — their own page lists «download the CV as a PDF» as step four. The reverse direction is the interesting part: they accept an existing CV as a Word file or a PDF and transfer it into your account, quoting one to three working days and an added fee. Word is welcome as an entrance there and closed as an exit.

lebenslauf.ch

The tool from Universal-Job AG has the most generous free tier on the Swiss list — no login, no paid plan, five templates, and free control over colour, typeface, type size and line spacing. Its page title says so itself: a CV generator that is «100% free and without login».

On file format it is equally clear. Its own FAQ answers the download question by saying you can currently download it as a PDF, or better still send it as a link so recipients always reach the newest version. The word «currently» leaves the door open; today the answer to the Word question is no.

The link instead of the file is more than a consolation prize. If you apply over weeks and revise the CV in between, every file you have already sent is a stale version. For a speculative application to a small company it is still the wrong move — an attachment is expected there, and the official advice from arbeit.swiss is also to send documents as files.

berufsberatung.ch, orientation.ch and orientamento.ch — and why English readers miss out

The official address for a .docx with no account and no payment is the cantonal careers portal, run by the SDBB on behalf of the cantons. Under «templates and examples for your CV» the German page offers a fill-in CV as a DOCX, alongside three completed examples as PDFs.

The same exists in French-speaking Switzerland and in Ticino, and the three editions are not identical. orientation.ch calls the file «Exemple de CV à compléter» and adds three PDF examples. orientamento.ch offers the «Modello CV da completare» — with no example PDF beside it at all. And there is no English edition: the page carries alternates for French and Italian only. If you have just moved to Switzerland and do not yet read one of the three national languages comfortably, the free official template is not written for you.

The caveat that belongs with it: these pages are written for apprenticeship applications, and it shows. If you have fifteen years of experience and are applying for a management role, this structure is more work than help. For a first application it is unbeatable — official, free, editable in Word, no signup.

Microsoft Word and Google Docs

For a lot of people the honest answer to «which tool gives me a .docx» is: the one that invented the .docx. Word writes its own format, and Google Docs downloads any document as Microsoft Word on request. If you already use either, this question needs no application tool at all.

Word on your machine is not free, though. Microsoft’s Swiss comparison page listed Microsoft 365 Single at CHF 9.95 a month or CHF 99.95 a year on 4 September 2026, Family at CHF 139.95 a year, and Office Home 2024 as a one-time purchase at CHF 159.95.

What you do not get there is the Swiss application logic. A template from an international gallery has no line for your work permit, no workload in per cent, no place for Arbeitszeugnisse — the written employer references a Swiss dossier is expected to carry — and no language levels stated as A1 to C2. It also puts the photo wherever the design happens to want it, in a country where a photo is conventional rather than discouraged. That is the work an application tool takes off you. The file format is not.

Europass — where we deliberately say nothing

Europass is permanently free and Switzerland does take part; the national Europass centre is in Bern. For this page’s question we still cannot place it: the editor sits behind the EU Login, we never saw the download dialog, and we do not write about formats we have not checked.

That is the rule this page is built on rather than politeness. A comparison table with one cell resting on a guess is worth less as a whole than one with a cell honestly left open. If you use Europass anyway, you can open that dialog in two minutes and know it better than we do.

Do Swiss job adverts even ask for a format?

This is measurable rather than arguable, and the answer moves the whole topic. On 4 September 2026 we read about thirteen hundred randomly drawn live Swiss adverts with a readable description — spread evenly across the four advert languages, apprenticeships and internships excluded — and looked for any statement about the file format.

The result: 1.1 per cent mention «PDF» anywhere in the text, and only 0.5 per cent as an instruction to the applicant. Not one advert asks for a Word file. Not few: none. Another 1.9 per cent contain the word «Word» or a .doc extension, but in every single case as a software skill in the requirements list or as part of an address — never as a rule for the application.

By advert language, English-language postings ask most often: 1.1 per cent of them explicitly want a PDF, against 0.6 per cent of the French and 0.3 per cent of the German ones. In Italian-language adverts the word PDF does not appear at all. Read the seven hits individually and a pattern shows: they are universities, research programmes and public bodies asking for «one single PDF» — exactly the procedures where a dossier is read by several people and archived.

The only place a Word format appears anywhere in the sample is an upload field: «Votre CV - Format : PDF, doc, jpg, png». That is permission, not a requirement. It is a fair picture of how the Swiss market treats file formats: it leaves the choice to you.

Where a clear recommendation does exist is on the official page. arbeit.swiss writes in its application tips: «Save and send your application documents as PDF files.» And for the attachments: «All documents should be summarised in a PDF file.» The same instruction appears word for word on the German, French and Italian editions of that page. For sending, PDF is the Swiss norm — the Word file is for what happens afterwards.

Taking the bewerbung.ch objection seriously

They give two reasons and both are good ones. The first is layout: a .docx does not describe how a page looks, it describes how it is built, and what comes out is decided by the program that opens it. A different Word version, a missing typeface, LibreOffice instead of Word, and page two starts a line earlier. A PDF does not have that problem, because it carries its own appearance.

The second reason is sending. A Word file carries more than what is printed on it: the author name, editing traces, sometimes comments or tracked changes left over from an earlier version. Recycle a file originally written for a different application and you may be forwarding the other company’s name along with it. That is not a theoretical risk; it is the most common embarrassment with this format.

Our Word file is generated fresh in the browser from the document you are looking at, so it has no editing history, because there is none. The moment you edit it yourself, you start building one. If you send a .docx, check the document properties before you attach it. That is the whole piece of advice, and it is meant seriously.

Which leaves the question of what the format is for. The reason is on the receiving side: a Word file is the version somebody else can write into. Recruitment agencies put their own cover sheet on it before passing a dossier on; advisers comment inside it; an upload field that accepts several extensions takes it as well. If you always apply directly and never through an agency, you honestly need the Word file rarely.

What our Word file cannot do

One line belongs in the same answer and appears on none of our marketing pages: the application photo does not come across into the Word version. Our export rebuilds the document from the page’s text components — headings, sections, bullet lists, the accent colour — and images are not among them. The photo is in the PDF; it is not in the .docx.

In Switzerland that is not a detail, because the photo is conventional here while it is discouraged in Germany and in much of the English-speaking world. In practice: send the PDF when the dossier should arrive exactly as you built it. Use the Word file when somebody else is going to work on it — in which case the photo is usually the first thing replaced or removed anyway.

The second point concerns columns. The two-column view is rebuilt in Word as a borderless table, because Word has no grid. That survives editing, but the result does not match the PDF to the millimetre. If you need the exact look, take the PDF; if you need the text, take the .docx.

In short: who should use what

You want an empty Word template, free, no account, from an official source, and you read German, French or Italian: berufsberatung.ch, orientation.ch or orientamento.ch. For a first application or an apprenticeship that is the right address and we have nothing to put against it.

You want to pay nothing and only need a clean PDF: lebenslauf.ch. No login, no paid tier, five templates — just no Word file, and a German-only interface.

You are writing exactly one application and price decides: cvswiss.ch at CHF 5 one-off. That buys a PDF, though; the Word file there costs the subscription.

You are applying to Swiss adverts over weeks, want a separate version per job, and want both formats without a watermark: for that we recommend SwissJobs.app — openly, as a recommendation in our own favour. The argument is not the file format on its own but the combination: the advert is already loaded when you start, because the job search and the CV tool are the same site; the document is written against it rather than merely selected; and at the end PDF and Word sit in the same tier, in four interface languages.

And if you already have Word or Google Docs on your machine and trust yourself with the Swiss conventions, you need none of these tools for the .docx question. That is the most honest answer a comparison page can give, and it is deliberately not hidden at the very bottom.