There is currently no free / easily available software that can deal with .hwpx or .hwp files. For example, see this issue from LibreOffice.

I learnt about this when my friend (who translates and summarizes Korean legal documents as well as documents in other languages) told me about the issue. I also wanted an excuse to try building a desktop application. In the future I might contribute to the LibreOffice project directly to fix this issue but for now I just wanted to build a simple app that solves this problem.

You might see an error saying: ["SojuHWPX" can't be opened because Apple cannot check it for malicious software]. This is because the application is not signed.

Signing desktop applications for Mac is not free 😞. Code signing certificates for macOS apps can only be obtained through Apple by purchasing a membership to the Apple Developer Program. As of writing (11th April, 2024), this costs S$148 annually. I am unfortunately not able to afford this.

If you ignore the warning and proceed with the installation, the application will work just fine. If you're concerned about malware, you are free to inspect all aspects of it here: https://github.com/watate/hwpx-reader (it's open source).

Here's a short video showing how I installed it:

You can reach out to me at: walter.spades[at]gmail.com.

If this application helped you, you can buy me a coffee here: buymeacoffee.com/watate 😊

Or here if you are based in Singapore: