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Estimated Time to Fix: 2 minutes
Summary
If someone emails you a PDF and you need to make changes to the text, you do not need an expensive Adobe Acrobat license to edit it. Microsoft Word has a built-in feature that can crack open a PDF, convert it back into a standard Word document, let you make your edits, and save it as a new PDF.
Before You Start
- You must have the Microsoft Word desktop app installed on your computer. (This feature is currently limited in the web version of Word).
- Note: This works best with PDFs that contain mostly text. PDFs that are heavily image-based or contain complex graphics can shift during conversion.
Instructions
1. Decide What Kind of Edit You Need
A PDF is a fixed print-layout format — a snapshot of a document, not the document itself — so "editing" one means converting it or overlaying text on top. That is also why the original source file, when you can get it, is always the better place to make the change.
- Change the text itself — rewrite a paragraph, fix a number, delete a section: continue with the Word round-trip below.
- Add text, highlights, or notes on top of an otherwise finished PDF: see How to Manage PDF Files.
- Remove or reorder pages: see How to Extract a Single Page from a Large PDF Document.
- The PDF is a scan — a photo of paper rather than digital text — and you need its text: see How to Copy Text from a Scanned PDF or Picture.
- Fill out a form: see How to Fill Out a PDF Form Without Printing It.
2. Open the PDF in Microsoft Word
Word opens PDFs directly, so no separate conversion tool is needed.
- Open the Microsoft Word desktop app.
- Click Open on the left-hand sidebar.
- Click Browse and locate the PDF file you want to edit.
- Select the PDF file and click Open.
3. Allow Word to Convert the File
Word rebuilds the PDF as a document, and it tells you up front that the layout may shift.
- A small dialog box will pop up stating: "Word will now convert your PDF to an editable Word document."
- It warns you that the resulting document can look slightly different than the original PDF, especially if it contains lots of graphics.
- Click OK.
- Word will process the file (this can take up to a minute for very large PDFs).
4. Edit and Save
From here it behaves as an ordinary Word file, and you can save it back to PDF when you are done.
- You can now edit the text, delete paragraphs, or change formatting like a normal Word document.
- Once you are finished editing, you can save it as a normal Word document (
.docx), or you can save it back to a PDF. - To save as a PDF again, click File > Save As.
- Change the "Save as type" dropdown to PDF (*.pdf) and click Save.
Troubleshooting
TIP
If you are trying to convert a PDF that is essentially a scanned photograph of a piece of paper, Word's Optical Character Recognition (OCR) will try its best to read the text, but you will likely need to fix spelling errors manually.
| Symptom / Error | Potential Cause | Solution |
|---|---|---|
| Word asks for a password to open the file | Document Security | The creator locked the PDF. You cannot convert it without the original password. |
| The text is editable, but the formatting is a mess | Complex Layout | If the PDF was a complicated brochure or flyer made in InDesign, Word cannot translate the layout. This trick is meant for standard documents, letters, and contracts. |