How do you change a PDF file

[serryjw]

into a Microsoft word document?

[Crowdance]

1. Go here........

http://www.pdfzone.com/article2/0,1895,1815273,00.asp

"With the PDF document open in Acrobat 7 Standard or Professional, choose File > Save As. In the Save As dialog box, choose Microsoft Word Document from the Format (Mac) or Type (Windows) pop-up menu. Then simply click the Save button, and open the document in Word for editing."

[onehandle]

4. You have to own Acrobat to do that.

Most people don't.

[Crowdance]

6. True that. They get you comin' and goin'. n/t

[MisoWeaver]

19. You have to do the OCR in Actrobat first

You have to do the OCR in Actrobat first or the word documant will just be an image of the original Acrobat document.

Having Acrobat Pro is required I believe

[OhioBlue]

2. cut & paste? n/t

[Book Lover]

3. If you have the full version of Acrobat, you save it out as a text file

If you only have Reader, you can copy the text out of the PDF file and into a Word doc. Use the Select tool to do so.

[blueinchicago]

5. RTF

One, if the file is not encrypted you can just save as an RTF file, and open that in Word.
However if you have problems, you might have to save the whole pdf as a photoshop tiff, then run Acrobat's OCR to text tool on it, then compare the pdf to the text file just to make sure everything got OCR'd correctly.

I am assuming you have Acrobat 7 Professional. If you don't, take your pdf to Kinko's, rent their computer, and use OmniPage Pro. It should read your pdf and deliver a text file back to you.

Blue

[serryjw]

7. NOW I know this is not english but

I will try and translate...sorry, I have acrobat 5.0. If I send it to Kinko's or bring them a disk can they change it into a word document for me? It is a sales flyer and I want to personalize it with my name and save as an attachment to send to customers.

[TreasonousBastard]

10. Can you do that legally? Are there copyright...

issues? Whoever came out with the original owns it and would normally have to give you permission to change and redistribute it.

Assuming you have permission, and not the full Acrobat, there are utilities to convert it to other formats. Most use some version of Ghostscript, but the original PDF might be in a safe format that's not convertible.

Sometimes, you can just copy and paste the text from the pdf to a document, but that rarely gets the graphics and almost never gets oddball formatting or fonts.

Plan B would to either rewrite the flyer in Word or to scan it as a graphics file and make the changes in a graphics program. If the changes are simple enough, even Paint could do the job.

[serryjw]

11. No not copyrighted

They are just sales flyers and they don't have them in word format. What does Acrobat 7.0 cost?

[INdemo]

15. You can download an upgrade Acrobat 6.0 with all the updates free..

check it out on their website ...on your 5.0 click on the "help" and you'll see at the bottom .."update" click that and that will take you to their site...
But PDF is the final copy version and word will not encode a pdf file..Anyway 5.0 is pretty much outdated.....

[serryjw]

22. Thanks I will update

But that still won't help me as far as converting it to a word document?

[TreasonousBastard]

21. The reader is free, but the full version...

that lets you edit and write stuff is hundreds. Adobe sells some wonderful stuff, but it ain't cheap by any means. (Probably because it actually works at what it does)

If you can't copy and paste or scan and edit, I'd have to dig around and see what's out there now. I remember a few freeware pdf editing utilities, but would have to look for them.

[Crowdance]

24. If the doc has a lot of formatting in it it won't convert well

no matter what method you use. You CAN use Acrobat to add text to an existing PDF if there is a blank spot, and you don't have to move things around. A lot depends on how the file was generated as to how much you can do with the original.

[mike_c]

8. if you don't own Acrobat Pro, google "pdf conversion...."

There are free utilities available. Some of them will require a little work on your part. PDF is meant to be a final document transport format, not a working file format, so the short answer is that the PDF doc must be converted to some other format. If it's a complicated document that might be problematical.

[serryjw]

12. Which would you recommend

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=FREE+pdf+conversion+&btnG=Google+Search

[mike_c]

14. I have Acrobat, so I don't have any conversion problems, BUT...

...if you look at the Wikipedia article, and scroll down to the Converter section of links, there are a few you might want to check out. Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_PDF_software

I can't recommend any of them because I don't use them, but it looks like there are numerous possibilies.

[serryjw]

26. Google is our friend

An online converter!!!! I don't think the colors are perfect but will work fine for what I need. Might want to save it for future help! ....I would never have thought of doing this w/o you


http://www.freepdfconvert.com/?from=Adwords

[DireStrike]

9. You delete the file and scold the person who made it for using the PDF

Format, and ask them to send you the file in another format.

There are very few cases where other documents wouldn't be better and far less annoying to readers. I urge everyone I know to stop using PDFs... unfortunately I don't know anyone who makes them.

It must be some kind of corporate groupthink that makes people keep using them.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

13. Hate 'em..... can't see the reason why they even exist..... n/t

[TreasonousBastard]

16. You would hate me, because...

I tend to use PDF almost exclusively.

I was doing a lot of newsletters and flyers that went to print and online. Printing from a pdf is often easier and more reliable than printing from a word processor (either with my lasers or a print shop-- or the recipients, for that matter) and for online reading, a pdf retained exactly the formatting I wanted no matter what OS, browser, email client and settings, or screen resolution the recipient had. Postscript, with its pdf, is one of the ancient standards that has held up over time and is still one of the few that works beautifully across just about all platforms. Mac users particularly appreciated them what with the way Postcript is integrated into the OS.

Although I usually just use WordPerfect's pdf export and can't lock them, it still was some protection against "accidental" editing when they were forwarded around.

I send a death wish to people who happily send me Word docs, templates, business cards and other stuff I have a hell of a time reading, and sometimes can't read at all without buying the latest version of Office since not word reader nor anything else I have can figure them out. The worst are those Satan's spawn who render HTML from Word and send it directly as an email.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

17. That is the best solution mentioned

So far.

You can get some kind of Unix, that will do it too.

[KyuzoGator]

18. People use PDF for the exact reason that it pisses you off...

...because it prevents people from editing the document. This feature has useful applications in the commercial world.

[mike_c]

20. I use them a lot...

...to produce documents that are portable and that are formatted just like I want them, no matter what platform they're viewed on. I produce lots of docs that users are not intended to change, only read, e.g. lecture handouts. PDF is ideal for that.

[dmkinsey]

23. One of the basic atributes of a PDF is that it can't be changed

that the anyone reading it knows who created it and that it's a legit document.

[jmowreader]

25. You don't. Word sucks.

Let me guess: This sales flyer is a trifold thing that, in the old days, you would have received a box of from the company, taken to a print shop and had your contact information printed in a little white square on the back panel. And you want to do the same thing in this PDF, so when you print them out on your color laser the contact information will already be there.

What I would do, and this is coming from someone with a hell of a lot of time in printing, is to put the PDF on a CD or a flash disk, take it to a print shop, and ask them to open the PDF and add the information. (Or, if the PDF isn't too gargantuan, send me a private mail, I'll send you an e-mail address, you e-mail me the PDF and what you want it to say, and I'll put it in there for you and send it back. I can edit a PDF.)

Why do we use PDF instead of a more "suitable" format? There are many reasons, but probably the most important (for this application) is that you can generate PDF from any application that can throw off PostScript. I can take a QuarkXPress or InDesign file, generate a PDF from it, stick the PDF on the internets, and anyone can open the file with a free program and see it exactly like the designer intended.

[Old and In the Way]

27. If I want to modify a document in Adobe Reader, here's how I do it.

Take a snapshot of the document or the area that you want to use or modify.
Open Paint and paste the information there.
Modify using the tools....you can add text/erase/mark-up, etc.
I then "print" to a pdf output. I think you could also save as a tiff file, then open in Windows fax viewer and resave as a .doc file....never had to do that, though.