How to Convert PDF to Word Easily: Online or with Software

The easiest way to convert a PDF file to a Word document is to simply open the document with Microsoft’s text editor. Locate the PDF file on your computer, right-click it and select Open With… The easiest way to convert a PDF file into a Word document is to simply open the document with Microsoft’s text editor opens. Locate the PDF file on your computer, right-click it and select Open with.

Open the context menu on the PDF documentOpen the context menu on the PDF document

In the new pop-up menu, search for Word and click Ok at the bottom of the menu. If you can’t find Word easily, use the Look for another application on this PC optionto find the directory where the software EXE is located.

Select Word as the software to open the PDF fileSelect Word as the software to open the PDF file

Word will warn you that the process may take a while and that the final text document may not look exactly like the PDF, especially if it contains a lot of graphics. We must keep in mind that the result is not optimized to keep the original look of the file, but to allow you to edit the text.

Warning of possible graphic differences on the final documentWarning of possible graphic differences on the final document

After these steps, you will have the text document in Word format on your screen, which you can edit without any further complications.

PDF document converted to WordPDF document converted to Word

How to convert a PDF file to Word with Adobe Acrobat Reader

It’s also easy to convert a PDF file into a Word document if you use Adobe Acrobat Reader. You can start downloading the software.

To get started, open your PDF document as you normally would (Adobe Acrobat Reader should be the default when opening these files) and click the top toolbar File>Convert to Word, Excel or PowerPoint.

Option to convert PDF documents to Adobe Acrobat ReaderOption to convert PDF documents to Adobe Acrobat Reader

In the new window you can choose whether you want to add more documents to the batch, precisely define the desired file format (for Word documents you can choose between DOC and DOCX) and finally select the language of the original document. Why is this important? Because Acrobat Reader uses OCR character recognition technology. If you specify the original language of the document in advance, you will improve the end result of the conversion, especially if it is a text that has not been typed, but written from images or by hand, as this type of content is more difficult to convert into the Word format from a PDF file is to be transformed.

Selection of the final format for the PDF documentSelection of the final format for the PDF document

How to convert PDF to Word using Google Drive and Google Docs

If you don’t have Word or Adobe Acrobat Reader, or if you’re using free accounts that don’t allow any of the above options, you still have other options. Perhaps the most popular and universal option is to use Google Drive and Google Docs. To use this method, upload the PDF file to Drive where you can view it, and then use Docs to save the document as a text file.

First, open a web browser, sign in to your Google account and go to Google Drive. There you can upload a new document by right clicking on the main interface and the option upload select from the pop-up menu.

Ability to upload a PDF file to Google DriveAbility to upload a PDF file to Google Drive

Locate the document on your hard drive and click Ok in the lower right corner of the file browser.

Press Open to load the PDF into DrivePress Open to load the PDF into Drive

When the PDF upload is complete, you can view the document among the files saved on your drive. Double-click the document to view its content directly with the Google PDF viewer.

PDF file uploaded to Google DrivePDF file uploaded to Google Drive

If you look at the top of the viewer, you will notice the option to open the document with Google Docs, click on this button.

Press here to open the PDF in Google DocsPress here to open the PDF in Google Docs

If the PDF document is already open in Google Docs, just follow along the path File>Download>Microsoft Word, to download the PDF as a DOCX document.

Export the Google Docs file to Word formatExport the Google Docs file to Word format

We have informed you about three different ways to convert a PDF file into a Word document, although there are several other tools for such a goal as well. Note that not all tools give the same results (as expected, paid tools work better than free ones), moreover the end result largely depends on the content and creation of the PDF file (graphical and visual elements are more difficult for the software to recognize and convert to Word format).

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