pdf in word

[PeterArnel]

Has anyone a solution for using a pdf for the body of a letter in Word and using mail merge for the address

Peter

[Michael Rowley]

Peter:

There is no end of programs that convert PDF to Word—as long as the PDF file consists of text. If the 'text' is just a graphic, you need to use a program that does OCR, in which case you may need to edit the result (though generally not very much).

[deB]

Originally Posted by Michael Rowley

There is no end of programs that convert PDF to Word.

But but, that doesn't respect format very well, does it? Like, it works well if the PDF contains whole intact lines of text, but if it's something perverted (like what one gets if a Quark PS file is converted to PDF), with every few characters in its own stringlet, the odds of good results are slim to none, in my experience.

Actually it's been a few years since I even bothered to try, so maybe it's improved. But I wouldn't expect precise results - just a partially converted mess, ready for surgery.

And if formatting's not a big deal, then I'd wonder, why bother futzing? Why not just copy & paste the text from the PDF into Word?

But there may be something I don't know about.

deB

[Michael Rowley]

deB:

that doesn't respect format very well, does it?

I don't know of any occasion that you can't convert a PDF to Word as long as the it's 'text'. I use a program called SolidConverter, and it has successfully converted PDFs of printed documents that I'm pretty sure have been done with Quark ExPress: the only thing that didn't appear in the Word document were some words on a banner that was superimposed on a photo.

You can only 'copy' text from a PDF if is to appear in a Word document as 'text': if in fact it's a graphic, you can copy it as a graphic, but it then appears in Word as a graphic. But even text can't be copied more than a page at a time, I've found.

Most of the programs used to convert PDFs to RTF, but nowadays converting to Word seems more popular (it just eliminates a step for Word users). Conversion is much better now than it was a few years ago.

[Andrew B.]

One can drag a PDF into a Word document, and Word has a mail merge feature. Have you run any tests to see if this works well enough for what you need.

[deB]

Originally Posted by Andrew B.

One can drag a PDF into a Word document

I was gob-smacked to read that. MS tolerating the existence of an Adobe object??? But, I'll try anything [don't we know], so I tried it.

What I got was a PDF icon on the Word page, and when I printed it, it included the PDF icon (not the PDF content).

Am I missing a step?

Eagerly,
deB

[djb]

Works here. Single page PDF only (or page 1 of a multi-page pdf). Mac OS X 10.4.1, Word 2004. Dragon-drop.

[annc]

Originally Posted by djb

Works here. Single page PDF only (or page 1 of a multi-page pdf). Mac OS X 10.4.1, Word 2004. Dragon-drop.

Inserting PDFs into Word on the Mac works in my experience, but not on the PC. I have Office X on the Mac, and Office XP on my Win2K laptop.

I used to tell PC users to insert Acrobat files, until one of them emailed back abusing me for giving wrong instructions.

[PeterArnel]

Thanks thats what i think is the problem - the mailing house has PC's
Peter

[Andrew B.]

Originally Posted by deB

What I got was a PDF icon on the Word page, and when I printed it, it included the PDF icon (not the PDF content).

I am using Word 2002, Acrobat 7 Pro, on Windows 2000. And I was half expecting to get an icon when I tried it. But happily, I did not.