Converting pdf to text

Discussion in 'PC Help Desk' started by ncmom, Aug 31, 2012.

  1. ncmom

    ncmom Well-Known Member

    I've tried some of the free text converters and am not having luck. What is the best way to convert a pdf to Word? I've tried copy & paste but it just copies as an image that I cannot edit.
     
  2. Clif001

    Clif001 Guest

    I know this is going to sound snarky (and maybe there is a bit of snarkyness in it), but...

    If the free converters aren't doing it, maybe you should buy a converter.
     
  3. ncmom

    ncmom Well-Known Member

    I do not mind buying one. Advice regarding a good one to buy would be welcomed. I just learned there are converters that do this so am looking for info.
     
  4. Clif001

    Clif001 Guest

    I've used this one many times at work. It works great, for the most part. Occasionally there will be some format errors, but I still use it.

    http://www.pdftoword.com/
     
  5. appcomm

    appcomm Well-Known Member

  6. ncmom

    ncmom Well-Known Member

    I just tried this one. It converted all the text exactly but as a picture. It will not allow me to edit.
     
  7. ncmom

    ncmom Well-Known Member

  8. Hught

    Hught Well-Known Member

    It depends on how the pdf file was scanned. If the scan did not include OCR (Optical Character Recognition) your copy and paste will be only as a picture. If it was scanned with OCR and saved as a PDF you should be able to copy and paste text.

    You might want to find a free OCR program and run it on your problem PDF's.
     
  9. ncmom

    ncmom Well-Known Member

    Hmmm... thanks for that info. I have a fax service that sends the documents to me as PDFs in my email. The PDFs must not be OCR.
     
  10. ServerSnapper

    ServerSnapper Well-Known Member

    I hate adobe.
     

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