If you have a PDF document with a lot of text in it, you can actually open that PDF in Microsoft Word as though it’s a Word Document. Then, you could edit the text in the document using Microsoft Word just like normal and then save the document as a Word Document, or even re-save it as a PDF.
And it’s all very easy to do within Microsoft Word! So today, I’m going to show you how it’s done.
Prefer to watch a video about how to open a PDF in Word? Click here.
How To Open A PDF In Microsoft Word
To open your PDF in Microsoft Word, all you need to do is open Word and click on “Open” in the menu on the left hand side of the screen.
Then, on the next screen, click on “Browse” under “Other locations”.
Now, a file picker will appear, and this is where you’ll need to choose your PDF. I’ve downloaded my PDF from the web so my PDF is in the Downloads folder, but you’ll just need to find your PDF wherever it may be and then double click on it to open it.
Now, you’ll see a warning message pop up saying that Word is going to convert your PDF into a Word document, and explaining that it might not work completely perfectly.
And this is true, especially if your PDF has a lot of fancy styling and different things in it, it might not work very well.
But, there’s certainly no harm in trying because it won’t harm the original PDF if it doesn’t work, and as long as it’s just a fairly basic text document with perhaps a few images and other simple things added in, it should work pretty well.
So go ahead and click the “Ok” button on the popup…
And then, after a few seconds, you should see your document open in Word!
And now you can do whatever you want with it just like any other word document, you can edit the text, the images, or anything else.
But, you might have to go through the document and make a few little adjustments, for example, with my document, every time it said techtimewithtimmy.com, Word for some reason decided to add a space between the o and the m in com.
But little things like this are all really easy to fix so it’s no big deal.
And that’s all there is to it! Once you’re done, you can save it just like a normal Word Document if you want to keep it as a Word Document. Or, if you want, you could convert your modified document back into a PDF.
How To Save A Word Document As A PDF
To Re-save your document as a PDF, all you need to do is click on “File” in the top left hand corner…
And then click on “Save As” in the menu down the left hand side of the screen.
Now, you will see the normal “Save As” screen for Microsoft Word, and you’ll have the option to change the name and location of the document just like normal.
And I would recommend you do change either the name or the location, otherwise you’ll end up with both the original PDF and the new PDF saved in the same folder with the same name.
But once that’s taken care of, if you click on the drop down menu that says “Word Document (*.docx)” below the file name…
In that drop down menu, you’ll be able to select “PDF (*.pdf)”.
So now, if you go ahead and click the “Save” button just like you usually would, it will save your document as a PDF!
And once it’s saved, your newly saved PDF will automatically open up so you can view it!
And that’s all there is to it! You now know how to open a PDF in Word, and how to re-save that document as a PDF if you want to! All without having to use any third party websites or software.
But, if you’d rather use Google Docs instead of Microsoft Word, you can actually do exactly the same thing in Google Docs, and I show you how that’s done in this article here.