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Author Topic: pdf to doc text converter?  (Read 3685 times)

bit

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pdf to doc text converter?
« on: December 02, 2014, 05:32 PM »
I have an interior pdf document which contains indented paragraphs and some words italicized, with some text centered and some justified (straight right and left borders).
The original pdf is 1.18MB, and about 90K words.
I would like very much to convert it to MS Word 2003, saving the layout with all attributes as a pure text file.
Also if possible to drop out the 278 page numbers, but I could do that manually I suppose.
If I can get that far somehow, I know what to do with MS Word 2003 to turn it from that into an etext with dynamic clickable TOC (Table of Contents).
I found a different DC thread where someone suggested 'Free PDF to Word Online Converter'; it says it can handle up to a 10MB file, but when I used it, it only gave me a 1.4kb file and had only converted 4 pages.
Is there any freeware or free on-line way to do this?
« Last Edit: December 02, 2014, 06:46 PM by bit »

4wd

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Re: pdf to doc text converter?
« Reply #1 on: December 02, 2014, 07:32 PM »
It would help if you mentioned the online service you used so we're not suggesting it.

Be that as it may, Zamzar.

I just checked it with a 3.8MB PDF consisting of images and formatted text and the converted result was a 25MB Word DOC file with images and reasonably formatted text.

bit

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Re: pdf to doc text converter?
« Reply #2 on: December 02, 2014, 09:26 PM »
It would help if you mentioned the online service you used so we're not suggesting it.

Be that as it may, Zamzar.

I just checked it with a 3.8MB PDF consisting of images and formatted text and the converted result was a 25MB Word DOC file with images and reasonably formatted text.
Tnx, I'll check out Zamzar. :Thmbsup:
The other one that only gave back 4 pages is Free PDF to Word Online Converter.

bit

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Re: pdf to doc text converter?
« Reply #3 on: December 02, 2014, 10:23 PM »
It would help if you mentioned the online service you used so we're not suggesting it.

Be that as it may, Zamzar.

I just checked it with a 3.8MB PDF consisting of images and formatted text and the converted result was a 25MB Word DOC file with images and reasonably formatted text.
It did a magnificent job of conversion from pdf to doc.  :Thmbsup:
It saved all the indents and italicized text beautifully.
Any centered text that's left-margin can be easily ID'd and recentered.
The only drawback now is, the pages are all 'side by side' just like in pdf (and it preserved the page headers & numbers but I think I can instruct it to dump all of those since etext has no 'pages' per se).
Is there a way to batch/global convert the doc from side-by-side pages to straight single ones? :)

4wd

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Re: pdf to doc text converter?
« Reply #4 on: December 02, 2014, 10:57 PM »
I don't use Word, so someone else can answer that question :)

Target

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Re: pdf to doc text converter?
« Reply #5 on: December 02, 2014, 11:01 PM »
Is there a way to batch/global convert the doc from side-by-side pages to straight single ones? :)

you mentioned Word before?  Have a look at your view - word doesn't use any sort of page arrangement (that I know of) but the 'reading mode' will present that way

or is it 2 pages to a sheet?  if so try looking at columns (use the show all tool...)

bit

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Re: pdf to doc text converter?
« Reply #6 on: December 03, 2014, 01:05 AM »
Is there a way to batch/global convert the doc from side-by-side pages to straight single ones? :)

you mentioned Word before?  Have a look at your view - word doesn't use any sort of page arrangement (that I know of) but the 'reading mode' will present that way

or is it 2 pages to a sheet?  if so try looking at columns (use the show all tool...)
I'm working in MS Word 2003.
If I choose 'select/hold shift' and scroll down, it scrolls down the first page on the left, then the second page on the right, for each 'sheet'.

From experimenting with it, it looks like the conversion created a doc file with two pages to a sheet, and each sheet is actually a 'picture'.

If instead I choose 'select all', then 'one column', it makes each 'picture sheet' a full-width text -a super wide stretch- with page number headers posted at the top; IOW, it combines text from both left and right pages, and lists two page numbers at the top to left and right, sort of a super stretch width.

I don't know if it's just a 2-page 'viewing' mode, but if so, I can't get it into the 'viewing mode' of normal MS Word with one page at a time.
« Last Edit: December 03, 2014, 01:16 AM by bit »