convert PDF to Word/rtf/txt

[DrZoidberg]

Ok, I hate the pdf format. It's incredibly annoying. Here's the question:

Is there any tool out there that can convert any pdf to a word document?

What I'm asking is basically, is there a tool that can scan the text as if a scanner and then interpret it to characters that can then be spiffingly converted to any handy text format.

[comtrjl]

If you G**gle for 'convert pdf to Word' you get around 6 million hits; strangely, if you put 'free convert pdf to Word' you get about 36 million. So there are lots, including standalone products and several free online ones. You can also try a 'Save as' from Acrobat Pro itself, if you've got it. If you've just got straight text, any of them might do a reasonable job - that's as close as it gets to 'spiffy' - but if you've got headers, footers, figures, captions, multiple columns or anything like that, it might be quicker just to retype it.
Perhaps someone will come along with a specific recommendation - it can be done, but be prepared to do a bit of editing. If you look around here, you'll see that it's a frequent question.

bob

[DaleDe]

I suggest you go to http://www.anypdftools.com/ and get their free tool and give it a try. (only free this February)

Dale

[DrZoidberg]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

I suggest you go to http://www.anypdftools.com/ and get their free tool and give it a try. (only free this February)

Dale

Cool. This worked like a dream. Thanks, it's a shame it's only free for a short while. I'll have to get cracking with my converting.

edit: ok, I see now that it created a file almost 50 megs large which is well... quite bizarre. It's covered with transparent images which well... are transparent, and therefore useless. I need to figure out how to remove these before I'll call this a success.