CV and cover letter in your browser
What you see in the preview is the PDF you download. It has a real text layer, and your CV sits in it in the order in which it is meant to be read. For application portals there is the same version in one column, as PDF or Word, in one click.
EspooGood for portals
What an application portal sees
An applicant tracking system (ATS) does not read your PDF the way a person does. It pulls the text out of the file, depending on the program either in the order in which it is stored there or by where it sits on the page, and sorts it into fields such as name, positions and skills. Anything that exists only as an image in the file never arrives.
Name, profile, positions, then the sidebar. A parser that follows this order gets the CV in one piece.
Lines from the sidebar slip in between the positions. From the outside you cannot tell which method a portal uses. That is why every template has a one-column ATS version.
What makers of recruiting software name in their help pages as causes of parsing errors.
When two columns sit side by side line by line in the file, contact details and work experience end up in the same sentence.
Personio, Greenhouse
Headings as graphics, skill bars without text or whole pages as images have no text layer. The parser finds nothing there.
Greenhouse
From about 0.10 em letter spacing, OBSERVABILITY becomes “O B S E R VA B I L I T Y” in the text output. Those are exactly the lines where a parser splits sections.
Personio, own measurement
Some systems do not read contact details in the page header, in table cells or text boxes at all, or read them in the wrong order.
Personio, Greenhouse
Schematic based on vendor help pages and our own measurement, not a recording of any particular program.
One column, linear reading order. The shape portals turn into fields reliably.
Header band in the normal text flow, then one column. Portals usually read it correctly.
Two columns for people who read the PDF by email or on paper. For portals you download the same version in one column.
Every template has an ATS version: the same content in one column, as PDF or Word, without changing anything in your profile.
Check scripts in the source code print every template as a PDF, extract the text layer again and compare it page by page with the preview: text, reading order, word boundaries, hyphens. How a particular system reads also depends on its parser, and no layout decides whether a company invites you.
See the check scriptsTemplates
One column, header band or sidebar, each with its own font pairing. The label on every template tells you whether it is made for application portals or for email and print.
Shown with the demo CV, exactly as the template looks in the tool.
Features
Writing
Click into the text and type. Enter adds the next bullet, and the typesetting takes care of margins and page breaks, on up to four pages. If you prefer a form, every field is in the content panel. Free-floating text boxes are left out on purpose, because they are exactly what gets jumbled when a file is parsed.
Design
In the design panel and the carousel below the page you see every template with your own text right away. Accent colour, paper and font are separate choices, and every colour combination is checked for contrast.
Check
The check panel shows the text in the order a system reads it and flags gaps such as a missing email address or a position without a start date. For the cover letter it adds subject line, date, salutation and length, and you can check both documents together for the same name, the same contact details and the same language. With a job ad next to it you see which terms appear and which are missing.
Export
The PDF has exactly the pages of the preview. Word comes with your template’s design and in one column without tables. The ATS version sets the same content in one column, as PDF or Word, without changing anything in your profile. There is also LaTeX to keep editing, and RenderCV YAML, which you can import again.
Phone
On the phone you start in the document. Content, design, check and export sit in the bar at the bottom, and the PDF is the same as on the desktop.
AI bridge
There is no built-in AI. You hand the CV as Markdown to ChatGPT, Claude or another model and import the revised version. Before anything is applied, the tool shows every change. With an account, an AI assistant connects directly through an MCP server.
---
lang: en
pageMode: one
---
# Lena Brandt
**Senior Product Designer**
## Experience
### Senior Product Designer
Nordhub GmbH · Hamburg · 01/2023 – present
- Design system for four product areasOpen
Without an account everything stays in your browser, and you can take a backup file with you. The LinkedIn data export is read in the browser as well. The source code is public under AGPL-3.0, and anyone can run the tool on their own server.
Pricing
Templates, PDF and Word are free without an account. The Application Pass adds saving across devices, share links, versions on the server and the AI connection.
No sign-up, no expiry
Final price. No VAT is charged under the German small business rule (§ 19 UStG).
The pass can be bought by private individuals from Germany and the other countries of the European Union, and by businesses established in Germany only. You can pay with: Kreditkarte (auch Apple Pay und Google Pay), PayPal. Payment is handled by our payment provider Mollie.
Magazine
How-tos on CVs, cover letters and application portals. Wherever there is a number, the source is right next to it.
Bewerbung
Wann ein Anschreiben noch verlangt wird, was KI an seinem Wert verändert hat und wie ein kurzes, belegtes Anschreiben 2026 aussieht.
KI
Wie Rangfolge-Software Bewerbungen ordnet, was dir dabei wirklich hilft und warum versteckter Text und ATS-Scores eher schaden.
Recht und Datenschutz
Gehalt vor dem Gespräch, keine Frage nach dem alten Gehalt: was die Entgelttransparenzrichtlinie vorsieht und was in Deutschland schon gilt.
Recht und Datenschutz
KI zur Bewerberauswahl gilt in der EU als Hochrisiko. Was schon verboten ist, was erst ab Dezember 2027 gilt und welche Rechte du heute hast.
Bewerbung
Wann PDF, wann Word: was Bewerbersysteme annehmen, wie du die Textebene deines PDFs selbst prüfst und worauf es bei Dateiname und Größe ankommt.
ATS und Portale
Textebene, Lesereihenfolge, Kontaktdaten, Dateiformat: 20 Punkte, mit denen du prüfst, ob Bewerbersysteme deinen Lebenslauf richtig auslesen.
FAQ
Heidrich/cv is a tool for CVs and cover letters in the browser. You write right in the preview, choose from 40 templates and download a PDF with a real text layer. For application portals there is the same version in one column, as PDF or Word. You can start without an account.
A program can pull the text out of your PDF completely and in the right order: name and contact first, then profile, positions and skills. That needs a real text layer instead of an image, and the order inside it has to be right. Scripts check both for every template.
An applicant tracking system receives applications on behalf of employers. It parses the CV, creates fields for name, positions and skills, and helps with sorting. Greenhouse, for example, describes automatic rejection in its help pages only for screening questions the employer sets up in the form, such as work authorisation. The CV itself is read by people.
Nobody can guarantee that, because every system has its own parser. What can be checked, we check: a text layer is present, the order matches the preview, no words fall apart, no hyphens are inserted. For portals you use the one-column ATS version. Whether you get invited depends on the content.
No. Without an account you get the editor, all templates and all exports, and your data stays in your browser. An account adds saving across devices, share links, versions on the server and the AI connection via MCP. For now accounts are by invitation: you request access and get a link by email.
The tool is free in the browser, and so is the PDF of your CV. The Application Pass costs €9 once for 90 days. It is not a subscription and ends by itself.
PDF with a real text layer, Word in two versions (with your template’s design and in one column for portals), plus HTML, JSON, JSON Resume, Markdown, LaTeX (.tex) and RenderCV YAML. The ATS version is available as PDF and as Word. The tool can also import RenderCV YAML, and a .tex file if it was exported here.
Up to four. You set one to four pages or let the typesetting break the pages itself. In Germany one or two pages are usual, in science and engineering more is common when there are publications or a project list. From the third page on, the check panel shows a note about it.
Yes. The check panel reads your CV and cover letter the way they are stored in the PDF. For the cover letter it looks at subject line, date, salutation, length and forgotten placeholders, and with a job ad also at whether the job title and company appear. Under “Both” it compares name, contact details and language of the two documents and shows which terms from the ad appear where. There is deliberately no score.
CV, cover letter and interface are available in German, English, French and Spanish. Headings, date formats and field names switch with the language, and all four versions live in the same profile.
Yes, just not a built-in one. You export the CV as Markdown, let a language model of your choice revise it and import it again. Before anything is applied you see every change. With an account, an AI assistant can also connect directly via MCP.
Yes. The tool reads LinkedIn’s ZIP data export in the browser without sending it to a server, and the same goes for JSON Resume and RenderCV YAML. From an existing PDF you take the text via Markdown: paste it into the template, let an AI structure it, import it back.
Without an account your browser stores it, and you can download a backup file at any time. With an account it is stored on our server in Germany. Either way the PDF is made there: for the export the document goes to the server briefly and is not stored afterwards. There are no ad trackers; visits are counted without cookies and without profiles.
Yes. The source code is on GitHub under AGPL-3.0, with Docker files for your own server. Templates, the PDF service and the MCP server are included.
Start with your CV, right in the browser and without an account.