How to convert a PDF to Word and keep the layout

Which way of converting a PDF to Word should you use?

A PDF is a fixed picture of a page. Word is a flowing document. Every converter has to guess which lines belong to the same paragraph, where the tables are, and which fonts to use. The guess is good for simple text documents and worse for brochures, forms and scans.

There are four practical routes. An online converter such as PDF to Word works on any device and needs no software. Word itself can open a PDF and rebuild it as a document. Google Docs does the same for free in the browser. And if your PDF is a scan, meaning a photo of paper, none of these work until the text has been recognized with OCR.

• Short text document, a letter or an article: any method works. Word or Google Docs is fastest if you already have them open.
• Report with tables and headers: an online converter or Word. Google Docs drops more of the layout.
• Form, brochure or multi-column newsletter: expect to rebuild parts of it whatever you use.
• Scanned PDF or a photo of a page: OCR first, then convert.

How to convert a PDF to Word online

An online converter is the quickest way when you are on a phone, a Chromebook, or a computer without Word. DocGopher's PDF to Word tool is free, needs no sign-up, adds no watermark, and gives you back a DOCX with the layout and tables included. Files are processed in memory and deleted after 30 minutes. It takes files up to 300 MB and up to 50 files in one batch, which helps when you have a folder of PDFs to convert at once.

1. Open PDF to Word in your browser.
2. Drop the PDF on the page or pick it from your files. On a phone you can choose it from the Files app or your downloads.
3. Wait for the conversion to finish. A 20-page document usually takes a few seconds.
4. Download the DOCX and open it in Word, Google Docs, LibreOffice or Pages.
5. Scroll through once and compare it with the original PDF. Fix the spots listed further down in this article.

How to open a PDF in Word and save it as a Word doc

Since Word 2013, Word can open a PDF directly. Microsoft calls this PDF Reflow. It works in Word for Windows and Word for Mac, but not in the free Word for the web or the Word mobile app. The result is usually good for documents that were made from Word in the first place.

If the PDF came from a scanner, Word opens it as a single picture on each page and there is no text to edit. See the section on scanned PDFs below.

1. Open Word. Go to File, then Open, then Browse, and choose the PDF. On a Mac, use File, Open, and pick the file.
2. Word shows a message saying it will convert the PDF into an editable document and that it may take a while. Click OK.
3. The document opens in Word. Check the headings, tables and page breaks.
4. Go to File, Save As, and choose Word Document (.docx) as the type. Give it a name and save.

How to convert a PDF to a Google Doc

Google Docs can also turn a PDF into an editable document, and it is free with any Google account. The conversion keeps less of the layout than Word's, but it handles plain text well and it runs on anything with a browser.

You can make this automatic. In Drive, open Settings and turn on Convert uploaded files to Google Docs editor format. Every PDF you upload will then be converted. Turn it off again when you are done, otherwise all your PDFs will arrive as Docs.

Google Docs runs OCR on the fly, so a scanned PDF of a few pages often comes out with readable text too. The layout is lost, but the words are there.

1. Go to Google Drive and upload the PDF. Drag it into the window or click New, then File upload.
2. Right-click the uploaded PDF, choose Open with, then Google Docs.
3. Drive creates a new Google Doc with the same name. The original PDF stays untouched.
4. Edit the document. If you need a Word file, go to File, Download, Microsoft Word (.docx).

What breaks when you convert a PDF to Word?

Knowing the common failures saves you from hunting for them. Here is what to check in the converted document, roughly in order of how often it goes wrong.

• Columns. Two or three columns of text often become text boxes or one long column. Select the text, remove the text boxes, and use Layout, Columns to recreate them.
• Tables. Cell borders and merged cells may shift. Lines that were drawn as graphics in the PDF can turn into separate shapes. Rebuild the table in Word if more than a few cells are wrong.
• Fonts. If the PDF used a font you do not have installed, Word substitutes another one and the line breaks move. Select all, set a font you own, then fix the pages.
• Line breaks. Some converters end every line with a hard return. Turn on paragraph marks (the pilcrow button) to see them, then use Find and Replace to swap paragraph marks for spaces inside paragraphs.
• Headers, footers and page numbers. They may land in the body text at the top and bottom of each page instead of the header area. Delete them and add real headers in Word.
• Images. Pictures usually survive, but they may be anchored to the wrong paragraph and float over the text. Right-click, Wrap Text, In Line with Text fixes most of it.
• Hyperlinks and bookmarks. Clickable links are often kept as plain text. Re-add the important ones.

How do I convert a scanned PDF to Word?

A scanned PDF has no text inside it. Each page is a picture. Word, Google Docs and ordinary converters cannot select or edit anything, so the result is either a document full of pictures or an empty page. You need optical character recognition, OCR, which reads the letters in the picture and turns them into real text.

Run the scan through the OCR tool first. It reads the text in scans and photos so you can search, copy and convert it. Then convert the recognized PDF to Word with any method above. For a photo or a single scanned page, Image to Word goes straight from the picture to a DOCX.

Check the OCR result carefully. Recognition is very good on clean, straight scans at 300 DPI and worse on phone photos taken at an angle, faxes and handwriting. Numbers deserve a second look, because a 1 and an l, or a 0 and an O, are easy to confuse.

Getting back to PDF when you are done

Once the edits are made you will usually want a PDF again, because a PDF looks the same on every device and cannot be changed by accident. In Word, go to File, Save As, and choose PDF, or File, Export, Create PDF/XPS on Windows. In Google Docs, use File, Download, PDF Document.

If you edited the DOCX on a device without Word, Word to PDF converts it in the browser, with text, tables and pictures. For a small change such as fixing a date or a name, it can be quicker to skip Word entirely and change the text directly with Edit PDF.