PDF to Word

Greg Bockelman

Greg Bockelman

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I have PDF files that I need to convert to Word. I tried a program called ABBYY and it converted, but the formatting is all FUBAR'd. Line spacing is off, there seems to be blocks of text. I don't really know how to describe it.

At any rate, does anyone have something that will convert to a pure Word document?
 
I just opened up a PDF file sent to me by my CPA in Word 2013 and it was an editable document that retained just about all of the formatting.

The only bit that got messed up was a bullet point list.
 
Try opening your pdf file, highlighting the text you want to copy, then paste it into your Word document. I do that quite a bit, and it works fairly well. Sometimes you still have to fiddle with the formatting.
 
The degree the formatting gets screwed up often has something to do with the formatting used in the document. It has gotten better through the years but it is far from perfect.

Suggestion. Download the pay for Foxit Pro for a trial. I forget how long the trial is, but it is fully functional, so you will have a good idea of the state of the art right now.
 
I have Acrobat Pro XI. I can give it a shot if you like. It may or may not work based on the original content and the software that generated the PDF, but it usually does.

Rich
 
There is a fee involved from Adobe, about $40 if I remember correctly.

Can you Select All in the pdf, copy and then paste? Not sure, that would be the first thing I try.
 
bflynn said:
There is a fee involved from Adobe, about $40 if I remember correctly.
Click to expand...

Acrobat XI Pro or DC Pro are about $450.00 to buy outright, and XI is hard to get.Adobe is pushing everyone to "upgrade" from XI to DC ("Document Cloud," whatever the hell that means). But I took one look at DC and decided to downgrade back to XI. I really didn't feel like re-learning the same software I've been using for 20 years so I'll have new functionality that I don't need and will never use. So I just ignore the daily upgrade reminders and go my merry way with XI.

You can also get either version alone or in combination with other Adobe software on a subscription basis.

bflynn said:
Can you Select All in the pdf, copy and then paste? Not sure, that would be the first thing I try.
Click to expand...

You can do that, but usually it will look like crap, and sometimes it won't work at all. It all depends on what the underlying content is, how it was created, and how the PDF was generated.

Rich
 
Don't forget that you have the option to take a screenshot of each PDF page and paste it into Word as a picture (I recommend one per page). :D
Seen it done numerous times at customers' who were not allowed to store information in PDFs. *screwy*
 
somorris said:
Try opening your pdf file, highlighting the text you want to copy, then paste it into your Word document. I do that quite a bit, and it works fairly well. Sometimes you still have to fiddle with the formatting.
Click to expand...

Doesn't work if the document wasn't scanned with any form of OCR. On most usual PDFs scanned with crappy OCR or no OCR you either get one big picture which doesn't help any. Or you get what the OP ran into.

@Greg Bockelman did you use any kind of OCR software or hardware when scanning in the PDF's originally? If not, I'd say it's not doable. You can't convert essentially a "picture" to text. Any programs out there that try to extrapolate characters from an image are not going to do it right, hence the issues you found.
 
BigBadLou said:
Don't forget that you have the option to take a screenshot of each PDF page and paste it into Word as a picture (I recommend one per page). :D
Seen it done numerous times at customers' who were not allowed to store information in PDFs. *screwy*
Click to expand...
That does not help me because I want to edit the text.
 
Caramon13 said:
Doesn't work if the document wasn't scanned with any form of OCR. On most usual PDFs scanned with crappy OCR or no OCR you either get one big picture which doesn't help any. Or you get what the OP ran into.

@Greg Bockelman did you use any kind of OCR software or hardware when scanning in the PDF's originally? If not, I'd say it's not doable. You can't convert essentially a "picture" to text. Any programs out there that try to extrapolate characters from an image are not going to do it right, hence the issues you found.
Click to expand...

I did not scan it originally. Adobe has a program that will do what I want and it seems to work pretty good. I will report back when I know for sure.
 
When I do the cut out of pdf and paste in a Word document, I am able to edit it. Play with this a little.
 
I copy from PDF and paste to Word all the time. It works great when you need small snippets or you're just dealing with plain text. Even some formatting is preserved. When you're dealing with an auto-generated TOC, styles, headers and footers, graphs and tables, then not so much.
 
Depending on the PDF program you are using and its features see if you have the following options with the PDF open:

click "File"---"Export To"---"Microsoft Word"
 
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