How do I convert a PDF to Word?
Drop the PDF into the box above, wait a moment while the pages are read, and click “Convert to Word”. You download a DOCX file with the text of your document in it. Open it in Word, Google Docs, LibreOffice or Pages and edit it as usual. Your original PDF is left untouched.
This tool is in Beta, and it is better to say plainly what that means. It focuses on getting your text into an editable form. It does not try to recreate the page design, so treat the result as a starting point for editing and not as a perfect copy of the PDF.
Tip: If you only need a few corrections, such as a date or a name, editing the PDF directly keeps the layout exactly as it is. Convert to Word when you plan to rewrite substantial parts of the text.
Will the formatting stay the same?
No, and that is the main limit of this Beta. The words are carried over as reflowed paragraphs in reading order. Fonts, columns, tables, headers and footers, text boxes and pictures are not rebuilt the way they were on the page. A two-column article will arrive as one stream of text, and a table will arrive as lines of text.
That is a trade-off, not a bug that is quietly hidden. Rebuilding layout faithfully is a hard problem, and most free converters that promise it deliver messy results anyway. This one is open about it so that you can decide before you spend time on it. When all you need is the content, it is fast and tidy. When the design matters, keep working in the PDF.
How do I convert a scanned PDF or a thesis to Word?
A scanned PDF has no text for any converter to read, only images of the pages. Run it through the OCR tool first, which reads the pictures and produces a searchable PDF, and then convert that file here. Check the result carefully, because OCR can confuse similar characters, especially in small print or a photocopy.
For a thesis or a long report you wrote yourself, the text will transfer well, but the footnotes, figures, captions and tables will need to be rebuilt in Word. If you only want to copy passages into another document, the PDF to text tool gives you the words alone, which is quicker to paste and clean.
Is it safe to convert a PDF to Word online?
It is, with this tool, because the file is never uploaded. You open the page online, but your browser reads the PDF and creates the DOCX on your own phone or computer. No copy of the document or its text is sent to a server.
That matters for the files people most often convert: a thesis, a contract, a CV, a report with figures that are not public. You can check it in your browser’s network tab while you convert, where no request carries your document.