How to convert PDF to DOC

Do you need to edit the content of a PDF file and, to make your work easier, would you like to convert the document to Word format? No problem. There are many online services that allow you to perform this operation easily, quickly and keeping intact – within the limits of the possible – the original formatting of the file.

All you need is an average fast Internet connection, any browser among the most popular ones (eg Chrome, Internet Explorer, Firefox) and correctly scanned PDF files, that is, they contain “real” text and not some images with text inside. To tell the truth, something can also be done for this particular type of document, but we will talk about it in the final part of the guide.

Now let’s focus on standard format documents and see how to transform PDF to DOC starting from the latter. As mentioned, there are many online services that allow you to do this, but even good old Word can come in handy in such a situation. To find out more, read on.

Word 2013 (or later)

If your PC has an Office version equal to or higher than 2013 installed – bingo! -, you can transform PDF to DOC using Word directly. Starting from the 2013 version, in fact, the Microsoft word processing software supports the opening and editing of PDF documents, and this allows you to easily export them as DOC or DOCX files.

All you have to do is start Word, click on the File button located at the top left and open the PDF file to convert to DOC or DOCX by selecting the Open item from the menu that appears. Then answer OK to the warning that appears on the screen (concerning the possible loss of some formatting compared to the original PDF document) and wait for the file to be imported into Word.

When the operation is completed, click again on the File button located at the top left, select the Save as item from the menu that appears and select the path where you want to save your document. Finally, expand the drop-down menu at the bottom of the window that opens, choose whether to export the file in DOC or DOCX format and complete the saving by clicking on the appropriate button. Easier than that?

Note: if you are not interested in obtaining documents in Word format but just want to be able to freely edit the content of a PDF, I would like to point out that with the LibreOffice free productivity suite you can add and edit texts, insert images, shapes, highlights and other customized content in PDF documents while keeping them in their original format. To learn more, read my guide on how to write to a PDF file .

SmallPDF

SmallPDF is a great free online service that allows you to convert, edit and create PDF documents from a wide range of different files. It is completely free, does not require registration and protects the privacy of users by automatically deleting, within an hour, all the files that are uploaded to its servers. Its only flaw is that it allows you to convert only one file at a time.

To take advantage of the PDF to DOCX conversion function of this service (DOC format is not supported), all you have to do is connect to its main page and drag the PDF to be transformed into Word into the browser window. Then wait for the document to be processed (it should take a few seconds) and press the Download file button that appears below to download the DOCX file to your PC.

Online2PDF

Hi If you need to convert a high number of PDF, it could hand getting very useful Online2PDF . This is another free online service, also free and usable without any type of registration, which allows you to convert documents to and from the PDF format with absolute ease.

As well as SmallPDF, it protects the privacy of users by automatically deleting the files that are uploaded to its servers, but unlike the latter it supports the processing of multiple files at the same time: it allows you to convert up to 20 documents at a time for a maximum weight of 100MB. Among its functions there is also that to merge the contents of two or more documents into one.

To use Online2PDF, connected to its main page and drag the PDFs to be transformed into DOC in the red box located at the bottom. Then select the desired output format between DOC and DOCX from the Convert to drop-down menu , choose whether to convert the files separately ( Convert files separately ) or merge them into a single document ( Merge files ) through the Mode drop-down menu and click on the button Convert to start converting and downloading.

OCR solutions

If you are unable to obtain freely editable DOC files with the aforementioned solutions, you are probably trying to convert PDFs that have been scanned poorly, i.e. they have been scanned as images and not as text files, into Word format.

To solve this problem – or at least try to do it – from your “fed” documents to an OCR (optical character recognition) application, an application that is able to recognize the writing characters present in images and turn them into texts editable with Word or any other software suitable for the purpose.

Among the most effective OCR programs, I would like to point out ABBYY FineReader for Windows and Prizmo for Mac OS X, which, however, are both paid and can only be used for free through trial versions. I told you in more detail about them and how they work in my guide to scanning programs .

Alternatively, you can rely on a9t9 Online OCR , a free online service that uses the most advanced OCR technologies to extract text from scanned PDFs as images. To use it, linked to its page, click on the Browse / Choose file button and select the document to be processed. Then choose the language in which the text is written from the drop-down menu and press the Start OCR button to start extracting the text from the PDF.