PDF to Word document converter

[TeaLeaf]

Anyone got any recommendations for a good PDF to Word convertor?  

Ideally free and without having to send the PDF to a third party for its return as a converted document.

Thanks in advance!

[smilodon]

I'm not in front of any of this software but I know that Libre Office (Open Office reborn) can convert PDF files to .ODT files which are Libre Offices equivalent of .DOC files. And I know you can save .ODT files to .DOC files as well in Libre Office. So while a bit of a bind it's one way to do it. You might in fact be able to go directly from .PDF to .DOC in one step but as I said I'm not on a PC with the software installed so cannot confirm.

Libre Office is FOSS so you can have a go with  no cost. In fact it's a pretty decent bloat free Office Suite for anyone not willing or able to cough up for Microsoft Office 2010

[Vargen]

Why convert it when you can just edit the PDF? I use foxitreader. It's even free

[TeaLeaf]

I've tried openoffice draw but that did not work well, Nitro was good but I do not want to have to email confidential documents to a third party to get them converted.   Not tried the Libre version yet has anyone tried it?

[TeaLeaf]

How much editing does foxitreader allow?  Form filling type editing or rearrangement of sentences, paragraphs etc?   From the website it looks like just form filling and adding text comments?

[Penfold]

You may be struggling.

I have Acrobat Professional and even that struggles to convert a PDF to Word without screwing with the pagination.

If it's not too complicated I've found copying and pasting the PDF text is the easiest because as soon as you start getting anything more than a single block of text it goes screwy in the conversion. If you want, email me a non-confidential sample of the type of PDF you want and I'll convert it to a Word doc and send it back to you to show you what I mean.

[Padding]

You dont like the online http://www.pdftoword.com/ ?

[Vargen]

How much editing does foxitreader allow?  Form filling type editing or rearrangement of sentences, paragraphs etc?   From the website it looks like just form filling and adding text comments?

That is really all I use it for. Not really looked into the full extent of it's functions, sorry

[GhostMjr]

I was in the same situation last month.

So I tried Simpo PDF to Word which worked with nearly everything as Adobe Pro wasn't working too well and the output format wasn't too good as it wasn't anything like the original document.

What I did find is conversion depends on how the pdf has been made.

If its in a font or format that word doesn't recognise it will show the document as a series of squares or characters.

Not sure how to avoid this though?

[Scratchy]

http://www.pdftodocconverterpro.com/shots.htm?id=fw

I have used this a few times, not perfect but with tweaks here and there it's ok.

[TeaLeaf]

You dont like the online http://www.pdftoword.com/ ?

The problem with that is that confidential client data then is given to an unauthorised third party.  So no, I can't do that.

[smilodon]

Tried opening a PDF in Libre Office and it does a pretty decent job of retaining the formatting. Sadly though it only allows saving back as a PDF or as a native Open Document Drawing and not as a Microsoft Doc file. If you want to go PDF - edit -PDF then it's a winner, otherwise I don't think it's an option sadly.

[TeaLeaf]

Nitro Pro got the best results of anything else that I used, including some really nasty forms with lots of boxes & graphics, but £100 inc VAT for the software and 1 yrs updates is a bit much for occasional confidential use.