Convert PDF to different file formats

Transcript

Learn how to convert your PDF files to different file formats like Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, and Excel, allowing you to easily edit your long documents and make significant revisions.

I need to convert a long PDF file to Word to make extensive changes, which can’t be done by simply using the edit tool in Acrobat. If you’re in the web version of Acrobat and acrobat.adobe.com, as I am here, simply select Convert and then PDF to Word from the toolbar, and then all you need to do is drag and drop the PDF onto the dialog to convert it.

Alternatively, if you’re in the desktop version of Acrobat, simply select convert from the toolbar, and all the file formats you can convert to are listed in the left hand pane.

You can export your entire PDF to Adobe Express if you’d like to redesign and add or update graphic elements. This will save your file to Adobe Cloud Storage and then open the PDF in Adobe Express in a new web browser tab. Once your PDF is in Adobe Express, you can add elements that are unique to your company’s brand under the Brand tab. Things like logos and color themes, or even use Generative AI to convert text descriptions that you type into unique images.

Now back in Acrobat on the desktop, you can also see that you can convert Microsoft Office formats like Word, PowerPoint, and Excel.

You can save individual pages to an image format like jpeg, which might be handy if you’re posting on social media.

Besides exporting the entire document or each page to a different format, you can export each individual image in a PDF to a separate file. Note that you can export raster images, but not vector objects. I’m going to convert this employee handbook to word for some extensive edits on the text. The dropdown allows me to specify what version of Word, and you can configure specific conversion settings by selecting the gear icon. Each file format includes its own unique conversion settings. So let’s take a look at the Word settings. Here you can retain the following text, which means the text will reflow as necessary. Retaining the page layout means you will probably see a lot of unique text boxes, so the text won’t reflow throughout the file. I’ll keep flowing text selected because I need this for my long document modifications.

Before I convert this document, I want to touch on a couple of ways to convert information from your file. If you only need to convert a portion of the document, you can simply select the portion you need and then choose the Export selection.

If you’re using the page thumbnails, simply select the ellipse icon and choose Export from that location. At this point, I’m going to convert my PDF file to word. You’re prompted to save your file to a new location.

And I’ll perform page recognition and write the file contents to the word format in the resulting word file. Notice that all the formatting has been maintained. You can even see how the table of contents has been converted to a table of contents in Word, saving significant time and having to regenerate the TOC in Word.

Converting PDF files to other file formats allows you to reuse content wherever necessary, improving document workflow efficiency and saving you significant time when making extensive changes to your documents.