I did a quick search and couldn't see answers posted anywhere so hope I'm not duplicating.
Just spent 2 hours faffing about reformatting a large doc after converting it from PDF into Word. I used PDFOnline which of course only converts part of it because they want you to buy the product to finish the rest. I've not yet found a converter (hopefully free?) that manages to retain a good proportion of the formatting without inserting extraneous para returns, boxes etc everywhere.
Has anyone any recommendations or am I looking for something that doesn't really exist?
It's working with vast great files, eight tabs open, etc, taxes the processor no end and kills computers. Par to the course. It is just bizarre that it happens at the same time of the year, well has done three times before.
I do appreciate all the advice, guys. It's definitely given me some more options to look at. I don't think there is a 'perfect' product out there yet, tweaking of the formatting will always be required, but I can definitely see if they offer a free trial etc so can see how close they get. Would save me hours in the long term.
Oh yes, you have to sign up and pay for PDF to Word and Excel, but free Word to PDF it that is all people do. Full version of Acrobat, sure thing, designed to work with PDFs and so a lot of things. I bought off the US site for considerably less than £225, mind you that was three years ago, so who knows. I would offer to let you send to me and send back the conversion BUT my PC is slowly dying, perhaps will soon rapidly die, which seems to happen to me every other August!
My understanding is that Adobe Reader X is what it says on the tin "Reader" you can only read PDF's with it and it is a Free download, Adobe Acrobat X is the program for creating and manipulating PDF's and the cost is about £225.00
I simply use Adobe Reader X because I have to do lots of conversions in both directions with formatting and often have to sign PDFs and return them. Some of mine are articles and even the occasional book, but there I must say book page formatting rarely stays in place with any software I have tried.
Haven't read the whole thread, but I am enamoured with a new App I have just acquired ( Mac Only ) Pdf Pen...on offer at about 20 bucks.... allows for a boatload of facilites, text edits, rescaling, resampling, adding hypertext etc
Thanks David. The one I just finished is actually an employment contract so can't send that one. Would you mind if I take up your offer should I get another doc in that's 'harmless'?
Its a bit expensive, but well worth it, if you want to see a sample of the conversion, send me a non confidential document as a PDF, I will convert it to word and send it back, my email address is david.blyth@microgenie.co.uk. Let me know in the email what version of Word you are using.
Thank you David. I'll take another look at that. Most of the programmes I've come across seem fine for a simple text conversion. My problem is, for example, I'll be sent a 40 page report which a client prepared as a PDF and I get the 'Oh Val, just convert that for me', I lose an extra hour or more trying to reformat the entire thing.
Thank you Steve. I went to take a quick look - Softonic always come up as a potential threat on my system. Perhaps it's just the cookies etc they use. Have you experienced any problems? Just checking before I hit 'download'.
Now that one shows definite promise - it did try to redirect me to the UltimatePDF site again which is the one that sets my security alerts screaming but I'll run a quick scan now anyway.
That's actually the best one I've seen yet - duly bookmarked.
I had a scout around the site but it seems to do only Word (or other) into PDF - I need it the other way round for when my clients want their PDFs turned into editable Word docs. I've seen a few 'download free now's but my anti-virus starts screaming.