PDF to Word (Word XP)

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My company has sent me a pdf file / document to which they expect a reply. It is a 6 page form and the best way to reply is simply too fill in the appropriate blanks on said form.

I tried to open the file using Word, but I bet you know what the result of that was…

I think I know the answer, but here’s the question: Is there a way to open the pdf file using Word (and still maintain the graphics and formatting)? Copying and pasting is not a solution this time.

Can’t for the life of me figure why they would send a file that can only be viewed…staggers the imagination! If there’s not a converter, then I will have to print the form, hand-write the replys and fax the entire 6-page document back to the office. Might as well close the e-mail accounts.

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> I think I know the answer
I think you do too.

If you want to edit an Adobe Acrobat document then you will need to buy Adobe Acrobat software, or something else that understands Acrobat format.

StuartR

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Darn! Well, you never know. Somebody, somewhere does / or will have a converter to handle the task. I was holding on to hope. I recently found a converter that would make a jpg out of an sfw – and it wasn’t that long ago, it couldn’t be done.

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If they do, I’d love to find it.

What I had to do to get from PDF to Word was install a couple of Add-Ins (from Adobe) for the full version of Acrobat, that converted the PDF to HTML with CSS1.00 and then opened the HTML file in Word.

It was a round about way to do it, but it worked close enought for what I needed it for.

It was no where near perfect, so it probably won’t do for your needs, but the two Add-Ins I downloaded for Acrobat were:

Make Accessible Plug-In
Save As XML Plug-In for Windows (beta 2)

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Hi Ricky,

I know you said a copy/paste solution couldn’t be used, but have you thought of copying the Acrobat pages as images and pasting them into Word? This preserves the appearance of both the text and the graphics. You could then simply position text boxes (with no fill) over the image in Word and enter the reply data there.

Cheers

Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

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Text Boxes, now there’s an idea I didn’t consider. That would probably work. And if I copy the original and paste it as an image, it should be exactly the same, color logos and all. Thanks – I’m gonna try that.

BTW, I appreciate all the responses. I’m still a little puzzled why the company would give us laptops with MS Office and then email us forms made with acrobat. Weird…

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Ricky, I tried to do this — paste an acrobat chunk of a document (a table) into a word 2k text box — and either I am not doing it right or the idea doesn’t work. For us Word 2k for Dummies folk, you walk us through this a bit more?

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Ah, Ron,

You’re not doing what I described – copy the graphic, paste it into Word, then place text boxes over the graphic wherever needed.

To copy the graphic from Acrobat:
a. Click and hold the mouse on the Select Tool button on the Acrobat toolbar. This is the button immediately to the right of the Zoom in Tool (Z) button. Then click the Graphics Select Tool (V) toolbar button.
b. Drag the cross-hair mouse pointer (the cross-hair mouse pointer is a large plus sign [+]) around the picture or graphic that you want to copy.
c. On the Acrobat Edit menu, click Copy (or use Ctrl-C).
d. In Word, Paste (eg Ctrl-V).

Have another go.

Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

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Acrobat can create fill-in forms that can be completed just using Acrobat Reader.
Have you asked them to send it to you in a more usable format?

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Although you can complete and print forms in Reader you cannot save the form+data to disc. In Reader you can only submit the field data to a server.

David

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If you don’t have the full Acrobat version, which can convert the document to be a fill in form, some of the OCR software products can convert a pdf file to Word. I believe that Omnipage 12 is saying this is one reason to get the most recent upgrade.

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