There are countless ways to turn a PDF into a Word document – from free websites to Word itself. The question isn’t whether it will work, but how much time you’ll spend fixing the layout afterwards. More often than not, it’s the clean-up, not the conversion itself, that eats up all the time.
First, find out what kind of PDF you have
Everything depends on this. Open the file and try selecting some text with the mouse.
The text can be selected – you have a digital PDF. Conversion will be accurate, because the characters are already in the file.
The text can’t be selected, and the whole page is selected as an image – you have a scan. In that case, you’ll need text recognition (OCR) before conversion, and the result will depend on the quality of the scan. More on this in our article what is OCR.
Where the layout usually falls apart
Conversion tools differ not in whether they recognise the characters, but in what they do with the layout. This is where problems usually appear.
- Columns. In weaker tools, two-column text turns into a single jumble where lines from the left and right columns get mixed up.
- Tables. They either become real Word tables or a heap of text boxes that are impossible to edit afterwards.
- Headers and footers. If the software doesn’t recognise them as headers and footers, they end up in the middle of the text on every page.
- Fonts. When the original font isn’t installed on the system, a similar one is substituted – and the document „grows” by several pages.
What to do before converting
Decide what you need from the result. If you only need a few paragraphs, don’t convert the whole document. You can copy text and tables straight from the PDF with their formatting intact, and it takes seconds.
If it’s a scan, check the language. Before recognition, specify the language of the document. Text in, say, Lithuanian recognised with the language set to English comes out with so many errors that correcting it takes longer than retyping it.
If the scan is skewed, fix it before, not after. Correcting perspective and background before recognition changes the result far more than any settings afterwards.
When Word isn’t the right answer
A common case: the person doesn’t actually need to edit the document, just to search it or fix something small. Then there’s no need to convert to Word at all.
If you need to search – a searchable PDF will do: the image stays untouched and an invisible text layer is added underneath. The document looks like the original, but search works.
If you need to change a few words – you can edit the PDF directly. Good software lets you edit text by paragraph, so the paragraph reflows across the whole page instead of falling apart after the first word you insert.
If you need data from a table – convert to Excel, not Word. It’s a separate function, and the result is much tidier.
About free online converters
Technically, they work. But there’s something worth considering before you upload a file: you are sending the document to an unknown server in an unknown country. A contract, an invoice, employee details, a medical certificate – whatever is in the document ends up with a third party.
If the documents contain personal data, this isn’t just unpleasant – it is a data transfer for which you are responsible under the GDPR. Software running on your own computer simply doesn’t have this problem: the file never leaves it.
In short
- First check whether the PDF is digital or a scan – the whole process depends on it.
- For a scan, always specify the correct language and fix the image before recognition.
- If you need to search, choose a searchable PDF, not Word.
- If you need data from tables, convert to Excel.
- Avoid free online converters for confidential documents.
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Every ABBYY edition converts PDF to Word: FineReader PDF Standard and FineReader PDF Corporate for Windows computers, and FineReader PDF for Mac for Mac. You can buy a licence in our shop; the key is sent by email.