Convert PDF tp Word format.

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Hey Y’all,

I received a request from a friend for a recommendation of a program to convert PDFs to Word format for editing. I know there are several on-line services that do this but I’d like to know if anyone has a recommendation for a free program for her to run on her PC to accomplish this task.

Thanks!

May the Forces of good computing be with you!

RG

PowerShell & VBA Rule!
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If the friend has Word 2019 and up, try first to open the PDF with Word (uses Word’s internal conversion). This works for a lot of PDFs. Word has problems with come elements of PDFs, but many PDFs don’t use those elements. The edits can be saved as a Word document.
If the friend wants to edit in Word and save as a PDF, the instructions below in the attached pdf file.

For those PDFs that Word has trouble with, I use the Free PDF to Word Convertor at the following link.  It installs and works offline.

FREE PDF to WORD CONVERTER

HTH, Dana:))

Edit-PDFs-with-Microsoft-Word

 

 

HTH, Dana:))

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WCHS, RetiredGeek

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Hi Dr. Card:))/ Dana:))
If I read your Edit-PDFs-with-Microsoft-Word instructions correctly, it is not possible to create a .doc(x) file that is a duplicate of the .pdf file? It will always be a .pdf file, right?

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Sorry just notice your posting.

it is not possible to create a .doc(x) file that is a duplicate of the .pdf file? It will always be a .pdf file, right?

No.  Those instructions are how to use Word to open a PDF, edit, and return as a PDF.

To save as a Word document: After opening a PDF in Word, just select Save as and the default file type will be .docx.  Yes Word will open a PDF and save that PDF as a Word document.  BTW: to do that you don’t need to open a copy of the PDF.

 

HTH, Dana:))

HTH, Dana:))

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WCHS

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In addition to Word 2019, I used Word 2016 to opened Edit-PDFs-with-Microsoft-Word.pdf and the .docx file that resulted is exactly like the .pdf file, screenshots and all!

Thanks for this great tip!

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Dana,
This instructional pdf file has been extremely helpful. I have used it many times now to to convert .pdf files to Word 2016 or 2019 .docx files and it has always worked well.

I do the conversion because sometimes I find that I want to modify a helpful pdf document that I’ve found somewhere by adding additional information that I’ve found elsewhere or by adding my comments, sometimes in the form of text boxes.

I save it afterwards as a .docx file or to cut down on disk space, I save it as a new pdf file, using the ‘save’ function in Word.

Thanks for this very useful tip.

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Does it work with the latest iteration of pdfs (v2)? It is ten years old.

Eliminate spare time: start programming PowerShell

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About Free PDF to Word Convertor

It does have some problems with complex PDFs.  It will add extra spaces on some PDFs and some PDFs it won’t convert at all.  I have not found a free standard alone convertor that does a better job than this one that doesn’t have a bunch of strings attached (limited use) mainly to get you to buy their software.  The online convertors are better, but many users don’t want to put their files online.

I rarely use it, because Word usually opens any pdf I want very accurately.

HTH, Dana:))

HTH, Dana:))

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RetiredGeek wrote:

a recommendation for a free program for her to run on her PC to accomplish this task

Portable LibreOffice is free.

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RetiredGeek

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I download and installed Portable LibreOffice.  It had trouble opening some PDFs and it crashed twice on me, but was able to recover one of them.  It opens the pdf as an image and I could see no way to convert the pdf to any type of text format or to a Word document.  You could export as a PDF, but could only be saved as some type of image file.  Am I doing something wrong?

Dana:))

HTH, Dana:))

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Alex5723

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Sorry, my mistake.

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RetiredGeek wrote:

a program to convert PDFs to Word format

I haven’t tried *.pdf to Word conversion, I’ve had no need to.

But PDF Shaper claims it can do that besides make pdf sit up, shake a paw, play dead, roll over and many other tricks.

And it’s free for non-commercial use.

 

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To convert PDFs to Word DOC/DOCX you need the Premium paid-for version of PDF Shaper.  Fwiw.

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E Pericoloso Sporgersi

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CBA wrote:

To convert PDFs to Word DOC/DOCX you need the Premium paid-for version of PDF Shaper.  Fwiw.

You’re right, my mistake.

But OTOH it’s a license, not a subscription. IMHO the price is reasonable for a lifetime license, assuming you’ll never need security updates.

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WCHS wrote:

it is not possible to create a .doc(x) file that is a duplicate of the .pdf file? It will always be a .pdf file, right?

@WCHS, it is possible to convert PDF files to DOCX files with PDF-editing software such as Foxit PhantomPDF or Adobe Acrobat. These are both paid products, though. Now, Acrobat is astronomically expensive of course, and they now want you to buy a yearly subscription, but Foxit is much less expensive and you can still buy a permanent license as in the old days.

There may be other brands of PDF editing software out there that can also convert PDF files to Word, but these are the two that I know of.

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Alex5723 wrote:

Sorry, my mistake.

Update. Yes, LibreOffice CAN convert PDF to DOC(X).
I just tested it.

1.launch Writer
2. Select Open choose “PDF – Portable Document Format (Writer)” in the File Open dialog.
3 Save to any format supported by LibreOffice, including DOC…(manually change the file’s extension in the save window)

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Drcard:)), RetiredGeek, WCHS, access-mdb

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That works in Word as well.

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access-mdb wrote:

That works in Word as well.

I don’t and never used Microsoft Office.

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