When you open a PDF file in Word, Word uses a system of complex rules to figure out what Word objects (like headings, lists, tables, etc.) best represent the original PDF and where to put those objects in the Word document.This is not close to something I would call THE solution, due to a number of factors (I will play down my own answer itemizing these below).īut it is the closest I got when trying to do the same thing! But you can’t see those differences when you look at the PDF in a reader. For example, a PDF might contain invisible text, graphics, and images. For example, PDF stores a table as a set of lines without any relationship to the content inside the table cells.ĭifferent programs represent the same content using different structures in PDF files. Most PDFs don’t include information about structural content elements, such as paragraphs, tables, or columns. PDF is a fixed file format, which means the file stores the location of text, pictures, and vector graphics on a page, but not necessarily the relationships among them. If your PDF includes these, you might want to open it directly rather than converting it to a Word document:įont effects, like Glow or Shadow (in the Word file, the effects are represented by graphics) Some elements are known to be problematic when converting from PDF to Word format. Document elements that don’t convert well For example, if Word doesn’t recognize a footnote, it treats the footnote as regular text and might not put it at the bottom of the page.

Sometimes, Word doesn’t detect an element, and so the Word version doesn’t match the original PDF file. When that happens, the text can’t be edited. If the PDF contains mostly charts or other graphics, the whole page might show up as an image. But when you open a PDF file in Word, it might not look exactly the way it looked as a PDF. You always have the original PDF file, in case you don't want to keep the version that Word converts.Ĭonverting from PDF to Word works best with files that are mostly text-for example, business, legal, or scientific documents. Word makes a copy of the PDF, converting it to a Word document and attempting to match layout of the original PDF.

However, if you want to edit the PDF file, go ahead and open it in Word. To open a PDF file without converting it to a Word document, open the file directly wherever it's stored (for example, double-click the PDF file in your Documents folder).

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