Formatting issues are invisible to you but highly visible to the ATS. A beautifully designed resume with columns, icons, and a stylish header can look professional in your PDF viewer while reading as scrambled nonsense to the parser. The result is a low score for a qualified candidate. The good news is that most formatting problems are quick to fix once you know what to look for. This guide walks through the most common ATS formatting issues and exactly how to resolve each one.
Try It FreeGo to the Home tab and click the Editing dropdown, then choose 'Select Objects' or use Ctrl+A to select all, then look for any floating objects. Right-click any text box and select 'Copy Text.' Delete the text box, then paste the copied text directly into the document body in the correct location. Text boxes look fine on screen but most ATS parsers cannot read their contents - your skills, contact info, or summary may simply disappear.
To check: in Word, go to View > Draft mode and look for any table grid lines. To remove a table, click inside it, go to the Table Layout tab, and select 'Convert to Text.' In Google Docs, select a two-column section, go to Format > Columns, and change to one column. After converting, clean up the text flow so your content reads logically from top to bottom.
If your name or contact details are in the shaded header area that activates, they are in the header - invisible to most ATS systems. Click on your name and contact info in the header, cut the text (Ctrl+X), then press Escape to exit the header. Click at the very beginning of the main document body and paste (Ctrl+V). Reformat as needed. Do the same for any content placed in the footer.
Copy your resume text into Notepad or another plain text editor and look for any question marks, boxes, or strange symbols - these are icon characters that the ATS cannot interpret. Replace all custom bullet icons with a standard round bullet (•) or a simple dash (-). Replace any star ratings (the kind made of star icons) with a text description of your proficiency level.
Delete any decorative lines made with repeated characters (like '------' or '======') - replace them with a simple one-line paragraph space or a standard Word/Docs horizontal rule if you need a visual separator. Rename any non-standard section headings to ATS-recognized labels: Experience, Education, Skills, Certifications, Summary.
In Word: File > Save As > choose .docx format. In Google Docs: File > Download > Microsoft Word (.docx). Then run the plain-text parse test: copy all text from the document and paste into Notepad. Review the output carefully. Every section and every bullet point should appear in the correct order with no scrambled or missing text. If anything is wrong, trace it back to the source and fix the formatting.
Check your resume against any job description in under 60 seconds.
Add to Chrome for FreeYes, standard bold and italic text formatting is safe to use and is handled correctly by all major ATS platforms. Using bold for job titles and company names, and occasionally for key achievements, is fine. Avoid using bold or italic as the sole way to convey meaning - write it so the text makes sense even if the formatting were stripped away. Underline is less common in resumes and can sometimes interfere with hyperlink parsing, so use it sparingly if at all.
A PDF exported from a Word document or Google Docs is usually safe, provided it is a selectable text PDF rather than a scanned image. To check: open the PDF and try to click and drag to highlight text. If you can, the text is readable by ATS. If you cannot highlight anything, the PDF is an image and will not be parsed. However, even with selectable text, some ATS platforms still prefer .docx. Unless the posting explicitly requests a PDF, .docx is the safer default.
A clean, single-column ATS-formatted resume does not have to look plain or boring. You can still use professional typography, clear visual hierarchy with font sizes and spacing, and bold text to draw the eye to important information. The key things to avoid are multi-column layouts, tables, text boxes, and header/footer content. Many of the best-looking professional resumes are simple, clean, and completely ATS-compatible at the same time.
Free Chrome extension. Works on LinkedIn, Indeed, and any job board. No account needed.
Add to Chrome for FreeFree to use. No signup required.