When to convert a PDF to Word
PDF is made for reading and printing, not for editing. When you need to change more than a few words, a Word document is much easier: you can rewrite paragraphs, update a CV, reuse parts of a report, translate a document or fix a contract template. Converting the PDF to Word saves you from retyping it.
What the conversion keeps
The converter analyses each page and rebuilds it as a normal Word document:
- paragraphs with their fonts, sizes, bold and italic text and colours;
- images, placed where they were on the page;
- tables, as real Word tables with rows and cells you can edit;
- columns, headers and page breaks;
- links.
Simple documents such as letters, reports and CVs usually come out very close to the original. Complex layouts, such as magazines, brochures with text over images, or forms with many small boxes, may need some manual corrections, because a PDF stores positioned letters and lines, and Word works with flowing paragraphs. Fonts that are not installed on your computer are replaced by similar ones in Word.
Scanned PDFs need OCR
A scanned PDF has no text, only pictures of the pages. Converted as it is, it would give you a Word file with one image per page, and nothing to edit. The tool checks every PDF before converting. When it finds pages without a text layer, the text is recognized with OCR on our server, and the scanned pages are rebuilt as normal pages before the conversion. The text becomes editable paragraphs, tables become real Word tables with their lines, and pictures are cut out of the scan and kept. The fonts, colours and text styles of the scan are not recognized, so the Word file uses a standard font. The languages are detected from the alphabet; for a document in a language such as Spanish or Polish, choose the language yourself for better results. Up to 300 scanned pages are recognized per file. You can also choose to convert the file as it is.
DOCX, DOC, RTF or ODT
- DOCX is the standard format of Word since 2007, and the best choice for almost everyone. It keeps the layout best.
- DOC is the older Word 97–2003 format, for old software or systems that require it. See PDF to DOC.
- RTF opens in nearly every word processor, including WordPad. See PDF to RTF.
- ODT is the native format of LibreOffice and OpenOffice.
How your file is handled
PDF to Word conversion runs on our own server with open-source software. The file is sent over an encrypted HTTPS connection, converted and deleted right after. The result is kept for 15 minutes at most so that you can download it. You can convert up to 20 files at a time, with up to 500 pages each. Password-protected PDFs are converted after you enter the password.
When you have edited the document, save it as PDF again in Word, or use Word to PDF. For tables, PDF to Excel is often the better choice.