Word Output Alternatives with Able2Extract's - PDF to Word Conversion Option

When undertaking a PDF to Word conversion, you will be prompted with the following dialog box.  You will have the option for four types of PDF to Word conversions - Standard, Forms, Frames and Text Only. The following briefly explains the pros and cons of the various conversion options:

The above dialog box gives you three options for your PDF to Word Conversion.

1. Standard - The default conversion option will retain background graphics, as a background image in the converted output, and the textual layout using the layout of the original PDF document for guidance.  For most documents, this will provide the best looking output in a format that is simple to edit. As such, it is the recommended format for most documents.
   
2. Forms - The Forms conversion option should only be used with a native PDF document that contains PDF form elements. A PDF Form is a document that was created using PDF Form creation software - a good example of a form element is a box on a PDF that you can type in. The application will identify these form elements and notify you if the document you have selected does not contain form elements within your selection. The conversion to Word will attempt to retain the form elements and transpose them into the closest Word form elements that are available. Note: The "Forms" conversion can only convert into a Word document, because the form element output is native to Word and not available for RTF.


3. Frames - Selecting the Frames conversion option will result in the converted PDF to Word output retaining the background graphics and layout of the selected pages and items, but with the text appearing in individual text boxes in a new word document. This conversion is ideal for users that prefer to work with text boxes which can be easily moved within a document.  Under certain circumstances, because the text boxes are designed to correlate with the structural positioning of the original PDF document, it may be possible to generate a more accurate layout than with the Standard conversion selection option.
   
4. Text Only - The PDF to Word Text Only conversion option will only convert the text portions of selected items.  The text will appear as a standard paragraph without special formatting or text boxes in a new word document.  This conversion is most useful when preserving the look and feel of the PDF in Word format is not important, but the user desires easy access to the text information.

After selecting a PDF toWord conversion option, with the exception of the Forms conversion, which defaults to a Word conversion, you will be presented with the following dialogue box concerning Word format or RTF format:

1. The Word Document selection in the above dialogue box will save the output as a *.doc format and is the default selection.  Choosing the Word Document selection will allow the end user to edit and share the document in Word applications. 
   
2. RTF Document – The *.rtf selection results in a document that is created as an RTF file, which is an interchange format that is fully compatible with Word.  Under certain circumstances, using an RTF as the basis for the PDF to Word conversion process results in a much faster conversion than converting directly into a Word document.

Note: One potential drawback for RTF conversions is that the file size may become large and unwieldy for users using older versions of Word – such as Word 97 or Word 2000.  To control file size, these users may want to select "Word Document" conversions and consider doing small batch conversions (of 3-5 pages), if conversion is slow, of a larger document directly into Word – then use the ‘cut’ and ‘paste’ function to combine the portions into a single document.  Unfortunately, there is no simple solution for converting complex PDF documents for older versions of Word.