How to Convert a PDF to a Word Document

Convert PDF to Word

Three easy ways to convert a PDF to Word

It?s easy to convert a PDF file to Word format using Adobe Acrobat Pro, but not everyone will pay such a high price tag for occasional conversion tasks. Thankfully, there are some free conversion tools available, although there are some issues to consider with each. While the team at BrightBox Solutions and Help Desk Premier are not affiliated with or specifically endorsing the tools mentioned below, we do find them to be effective choices for the task at hand.

Keep in mind that not all PDF?s are created equal, and any conversion tool may have difficulty converting a PDF that was created by a scanner or contains intricate form data.? Likewise, security restrictions on your form must be considered when attempting to convert a PDF.

With that said, here are some options we found to be effective in our tests:

1.?? PDF Online ? PDF to Word Converter

http://www.pdfonline.com/pdf-to-word-converter/

This tool is very easy to use and allows you to select a PDF from your local system, click the ?Convert? button, and in a short period of time you are given a link to download your Word document.? Our tests found it to be very accurate and relatively quick.? One key advantage to this tool is no email address is required for the Word document to be emailed to you, as is the case with other tools.

However, we do recommend that you read their clearly posted Terms & Privacy statement.

In addition to this free tool, PDF Online offers a variety of PDF-related paid applications, such as batch conversion of? PDF?s to Word, server applications for batch creation of PDF?s from Word documents or other formats, and a host of other products.

2. PDFtoWord.com (Online)

The website?PDFtoWord.com is a completely free web-based PDF to Word converter. It is provided free as a promotional tool for the paid PDF converter from Nitro software.

To use?PDFtoWord.com, simply upload your PDF file and type in your email address. Behind the scenes, the website automatically converts your PDF document to Microsoft Word format and sends it to you via email within half an hour. Conversion is limited to PDF files that are 10MB or smaller, and you can only upload one file at a time.

There are a couple of privacy issues to take into account with this method. Firstly, some people are understandably nervous about giving away their email address. However, it seems thatPDFtoWord.com takes privacy seriously. There is an email mailing list option on the form, but this is unchecked by default, and the company also displays its privacy policy. If you?re concerned about giving the company your email address, you could try using a throwaway email address from?GuerillaMail.com or a similar service.

The second privacy issue concerns the processing of the PDF document. Once uploaded, your PDF will be stored on Nitro?s servers for ?a short time?. If your PDF file contains confidential material, you might want to give this method a miss.

3. Adobe ExportPDF (Windows/ Mac)

There?s hardly any truly free desktop PDF to Word conversion applications for Mac, which is surprising given that PDF printing is built-in to Mac OS X. Most of the applications you?ll find are only free for a limited time. Some imprint a watermark on the document or only partially convert the PDF.

Although not quite free, one of the most reliable and affordable options for converting PDF?s comes directly from the source ? Adobe.

The Adobe Online suite includes a module called Adobe ExportPDF. For $20 per year, you can convert unlimited documents from PDF to Word format. ExportPDF also offers unlimited conversions from PDF to Microsoft Excel, and RTF formats.? Unlike most free tools, it can also recognize scanned text and make it editable with its OCR capabilities, making it a worthy investment for those needing a more comprehensive PDF to Word conversion tool.

Adobe ExportPDF tool can be found here:

https://www.acrobat.com/exportpdf/en/home.html

If you?ve found a great free PDF to Word converter for the Mac, we?d love to hear about it. Let us know your feedback in the comments below.

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