Free pdf to word converter & vice versa?

thestrangebrew1 · 12-11-2012, 08:36 PM

I have a pdf doc I need to convert to word, or maybe even possibly edit, then convert back to pdf. Trying to update my resume. Any recommendations that are trustworthy?

lxskllr · 12-11-2012, 08:45 PM

I'd redo it using LibreOffice. Save it in the native .odt format as your master copy. You do that because it's an open and free standard, and it can be manipulated forever. When you need a different format, export it in the format needed. You shouldn't need anything other than .pdf, ,doc, and .txt

Edit:
To specifically answer your question, I'd try to copy/paste from the pdf to a word processor of some kind. You may have to tweak the formatting. Recent copies of Office, and LibreOffice can export to pdf. I prefer my pre-edited approach though.

thestrangebrew1 · 12-11-2012, 08:56 PM

thanks I'll take a look. just need to add another job & some dates but like an idiot converted it to PDF and now I can't find the word file

postmortemIA · 12-11-2012, 09:45 PM

it is hard or impossible to convert PDF to Word document, other way around is easy.

jhansman · 12-12-2012, 12:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by postmortemIA

it is hard or impossible to convert PDF to Word document, other way around is easy.

Not really. Acrobat Pro does a pretty good job now. I've converted many PDFs to Word docs that preserved complex formatting (tables, graphics, etc.) with little or no cleaning up to do. But then, it ain't free.

Demo24 · 12-12-2012, 05:58 AM

With words 2007+ it should already have the capability to save as PDF, if not microsoft offers a quick plugin you can download.

Outall · 12-12-2012, 06:12 AM

You can Try Kernel for PDF to Word and Kernel for Word to PDF tool for your conversion requirement, it supports all version of word.

postmortemIA · 12-12-2012, 07:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jhansman

Not really. Acrobat Pro does a pretty good job now. I've converted many PDFs to Word docs that preserved complex formatting (tables, graphics, etc.) with little or no cleaning up to do. But then, it ain't free.

yep hence not easy. If he had Acrobat Pro, he could simply touch up text straight in PDF and not bother with conversion.

thestrangebrew1 · 12-12-2012, 01:28 PM

Thanks guys. I was able to use libreoffice to do what I needed. It just so happened that my wife needed to work on a powerpoint pres. and I decided to see how libreoffice would handle the file. When I tried to open the ppsx file, it opened the slideshow and not the powerpoint portion where I could edit etc. I don't have office installed on my machines right now, the only version I have is 2003 which isn't compatible with w8, so I ended up taking the plunge and just buying Office 2010 for her sanity. She was livid we weren't able to get the file to open properly. lol

ringtail · 12-14-2012, 10:33 PM

pdf is such a PITA.

What sometimes works for me is:

1) Open the pdf in your your pdf reader (I happen to use the free PDF-XChange Viewer, only due to several years of habit, and not because I especially like it)

2) Use "File" / "Export to image" to export a pdf page to an image like jpg on your desktop

3) use OCR (I use Abbyyfine, or Google has a free one called called Google Tesseract, or another brand is Omnipage) to read the image into Word.

It's only good if you're handling just a small number of pages.

Also see:
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthre...&highlight=ocr

jolancer · 12-15-2012, 01:38 AM

I know this doesn't help the ops subject but just fyi for those who it may interest. this is the fastest slimmest PDF reader iv yet seen for windows. soo small doesnt even require an install to use, i love apps like that like MediaPlayerClassic. I am not yet aware of any free pdf editor of similar caliber

http://nikkhokkho.sourceforge.net/st...=SumatraPDFOpt

CSMR · 12-15-2012, 07:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by thestrangebrew1

I have a pdf doc I need to convert to word, or maybe even possibly edit, then convert back to pdf. Trying to update my resume. Any recommendations that are trustworthy?

For future reference, Adobe Reader can "convert to Word".

Nothinman · 12-15-2012, 10:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ringtail

pdf is such a PITA.

What sometimes works for me is:

1) Open the pdf in your your pdf reader (I happen to use the free PDF-XChange Viewer, only due to several years of habit, and not because I especially like it)

2) Use "File" / "Export to image" to export a pdf page to an image like jpg on your desktop

3) use OCR (I use Abbyyfine, or Google has a free one called called Google Tesseract, or another brand is Omnipage) to read the image into Word.

It's only good if you're handling just a small number of pages.

Also see:
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthre...&highlight=ocr

It's a PITA because PDF is a presentation/print format, not one designed for editing. If you're editing PDFs regularly you're doing it wrong.

ringtail · 12-15-2012, 01:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nothinman

It's a PITA because PDF is a presentation/print format, not one designed for editing. If you're editing PDFs regularly you're doing it wrong.

Yeah, but I work a lot with client docs & foreign government docs that are often put up in pdf.

Gotta deal with it the way they serve it up.

When it's pdf then sometimes I just HAVE TO convert to Word, or sometimes it seems better to convert to Excel first, then from Excel to Word.

Some converters lay out the pdf into text boxes in Word, so that the lines of text are separate boxes that don't flow together. Those boxes are sort of like cells in Excel.