Downloading Pdf’s is quite simple, but converting a pdf to an editable document can be tricky if you don’t know how to convert pdfs to word. I’m hoping this will help others, who find this article through online searches, in learning how to convert a PDF file into an editable doc easily.
Pdf documents aren’t editable and that’s a big problem for many people. If you want to modify your pdf, you will likely need an editor that allows you to open a pdf file and then saves it back as a new document. This can be rather time consuming and is often difficult problem to solve.
Chances are you have some documents you keep in the PDF format. They might be the presentation slides for a presentation you gave, or some company financial documents, or a family photo book. All of these are examples of situations where a PDF conversion to Word document makes sense. The good news is it is possible to convert a PDF to Word document . Today I’ll cover several ways to do this.
No doubt, Microsoft Word is the world’s favorite word processing software. It has so many great features but the most important thing is that it’s user friendly and makes editing quick and easy. Converting PDF documents like contracts, lease agreements, applications, quotes into editable Microsoft Word documents is an important job for most companies.
Tips
Keep your work intact.
When you convert your PDF document to a DOC or DOCX format, all your fonts and formatting come with it. That includes tables, bullet points, and everything else you want to keep updated.
Work from anywhere.
Convert PDF files to Word documents from your mobile device. Keep editing or start a new project whenever or wherever you need to.
Turn scanned files into Word documents.
Adobe Acrobat converts even the most complicated scans into fully formatted Word documents thanks to OCR. No more reflowing. No more adjusting content.
Convert only what you need.
It’s easy to copy, paste, and export only the text you need from a PDF, right into a Word document. The Acrobat PDF converter makes PDF conversion quick and easy.
How to convert PDF files into Word documents:
- Open a PDF file in Acrobat DC.
- Click on the “Export PDF” tool in the right pane.
- Choose Microsoft Word as your export format, and then choose “Word Document.”
- Click “Export.” If your PDF contains scanned text, the Acrobat Word converter will run text recognition automatically.
- Save your new Word file:
Name your converted file, choose DOC or DOCX file format, and click the “Save” button. That’s it.
Adobe’s PDF standard is handy whenever you need to distribute some information and be sure that it’s seen the same way by all recipients. But PDF files are also infamously tough to edit.
Unless you’ve paid for Adobe Acrobat (the full version, not just the Reader), you’ll have to look for a specific tool to edit the text of PDFs. Many of these are available on various platforms, but for an easy and free method that works across all kinds of desktops and mobile devices, you can use Google Docs.
If you have your PDF file ready, open drive.google.com in any browser and log in with your Google account. It’s possible to go through this process on mobile with a phone browser, so long as you do it in “desktop view,” but it’s going to be somewhat difficult—get to a full laptop or desktop PC if you can.
Upload your PDF file from your local files by clicking the blue “NEW” button on the left, then “File upload.” Select your PDF and wait for it to upload to Google’s server.
Once the file is in your drive, right-click or long-tap the item in Drive’s main view. Select “Open Open with,” then click “Google Docs.” The PDF document will open in a new browser tab in the Google Docs interface.
From here you can edit any of the text in the PDF document as if it were a standard word processor file. some of the formatting may be a bit off thanks to Docs’ interpretation of the images and spacing in the PDF file, but all of the formatted text should be visible and editable—if it’s a larger file, Docs will even create an automatic outline separated into pages.
You can edit any of the text in this window and save your work online in Google Docs for later. If you’d rather have a standard document file for an offline word processor, click “File,” then “Download as.” Here you can choose from Docx, ODT, TXT, RTF, and other formats, so you can open them in Microsoft Office (or your word processor of choice).
Click on the one you want, and it will immediately be downloaded to your default desktop or phone folder. That’s it! You now have a saved, editable copy of your original PDF, compatible with any word processor.
Add text, fill out PDF forms, edit PDFs for free and instantly convert PDF files to editable formats with Smallpdf.
You can’t just open and edit a PDF file right away. There’s a reason it wasn’t straightforward to edit a PDF on a Mac, on PC, or on mobile for a long time. They weren’t designed that way back in the 90s, when the intention was to realize the dream of a paperless office. Nowadays, you can edit PDFs and edit PDFs for free. 🤓
It’s easy to make a PDF form that is editable. If you need to do that, or to change the structure, format, or other big ticket items in a PDF, read our first how-to now. If you need to fill out a PDF, we have your answers in our second how-to.
Make a PDF Editable
- Choose the right Smallpdf PDF converter to Word, PPT, or Excel for your needs.
- Drop your PDF into the converter.
- Save your converted file on your computer and open in your chosen format (Word, PPT, or Excel).
- Make your edits.
- Use the relevant Smallpdf converter to change it back to PDF. All done!
How to Fill Out an Editable PDF
- Drag and drop the PDF you want to fill out into our free Smallpdf PDF Editor tool.
- Fill out the PDF by clicking where you want to type answers.
- You can also draw, annotate, type on, write on, or make highlights using the Edit Tool.
- Save and download your edited PDF!
How to Edit a PDF on a Mac
Using the second process above and our PDF converter, allows you to easily edit PDFs on a Mac. Mac does not have built-in software for converting PDF into alternative formats, which is why you might especially want to use our free online PDF converter tool to edit PDFs on a Mac. So far as I know, Windows and other operating systems do not have this built-in functionality either.
In order to convert PDFs to a different format for making larger changes, use our Smallpdf converter tool:
- Depending on whether you want to edit your file as a Word doc, PPT, or Excel workbook, for example, choose the relevant Smallpdf converter tool to change the file into that.
- Drag your PDF into the tool.
- Save your newly changed file to your computer and open it with the appropriate program or app.
- Edit and change as much or as little as you want in your file.
- Use the right Smallpdf converter to reverse the process and make your file a PDF again. Job done!
Why make a PDF editable?
So, then, why go through the trouble of making a PDF editable in the first place? There are plenty of reasons to make a PDF editable. For one thing, if a PDF online is not editable, then the text itself can’t be highlighted. You can still highlight free-hand, and our editor is amazing at that, but you may want to highlight the text itself for another reason. If your PDF is not editable and if you want to take notes from your highlights on a document—if you’re a student, an academic, a lawyer, a doctor, a person in the world— you can’t copy and paste text out of the document. So you can’t compile your notes. Once, you change your PDF into an editable PDF, grouping and organizing those notes becomes the easiest thing imaginable.
Fillable PDFs are Useful for Businesses
At the same time, if it’s editable, people can fill the PDF out with information and return it to you. Making a PDF editable automatically means it’s easy to make a PDF fillable. And having a fillable PDF means sharing a pdf form filler—like Smallpdf’s edit tool—is easy. Plus, our Edit Tool, the PDF filler, is free. If you’re running a business and you need people to turn around forms quickly, this is important. It could be as simple as their preferences for a fundraiser dinner you’re catering, it could be permission for a child to join a school trip, or it could be details about some work on a house that you, a contractor, are trying to win. In all of these cases, you want to make it easy for people to return filled-in PDFs to you. You want filling in PDFs to be easy and free for your customers. And we specialize in making all things PDF easy.
Annotate PDFs to Give Writers Feedback
A final example: say you offer to help a friend by reading and making notes on their novel. If the PDF of their magnum opus is editable, you can type on the PDF, write on it, draw on it (“move this paragraph here”)—whatever you want! It just makes life that much easier if you’ve turned your PDF into an editable PDF. Finally, don’t forget to check out all our other tools. You can do tons with Smallpdf, including signing, splitting, merging and compressing your PDFs.
Conclusion
Can you convert a PDF to an editable word document? Converting a PDF to an editable word document may be a difficult task if you don’t have the right software. Luckily, you don’t have to settle for an uneditable PDF document if you don’t want to. You can easily convert a PDF to a Word document – or even other types of documents – on your own computer with just a few clicks of your mouse!
Most of the time, when someone asks if they can convert a pdf document to an editable document they’re looking for word or word perfect. Unfortunately, there are times when that isn’t possible based on the format of their pdf file.