How to Convert PDF Files to Word Doc Files for Free

Your best free option is to use an online conversion service. With these services, you upload your PDF file, then download the converted file.

I tried a number of these services, including one offered by Adobe, but in the end I could only recommend two. Each, however, was excellent.

My first choice is ZamZar. This is an excellent general file conversion site, and PDF to DOC is one of the many conversion options available.

Usage couldn't be simpler: just surf to the site, select your conversion output type, point to the file you want uploaded for conversion and type in your email address. Some time later you will get an email with a download link for the converted file.

For my 107KB test PDF file, the download email link came back to me within one minute, which was pretty impressive, though I have heard that sometimes you may have to wait for quite a while.

My test file is in multi-column format with breakout boxes in various font styles and has embedded images. Converting this is quite a challenge.

ZamZar did well, though. The two column layout was preserved, the images were reproduced in their correct locations and the varying fonts rendered well, given that Word had no exact matching fonts. Importantly, all the text could be edited from within Word

On the downside the image quality was reduced and the article's large opening drop capital was displaced. Not bad though.

My second recommendation, KoolWire , works very similar to ZamZar. There are, however, some differences: First, the converted KoolWire file comes back as RTF, not DOC format. That's not a problem though, as Word can easily read RTF files. Second, the KoolWire site suggests that if the file being converted is less than 10MB then you should email the file rather than directly upload it. This is rather less convenient, so I told a white lie and selected the "more than 10MB" option, in which case I was able to directly upload the file just like with ZamZar.

There was another minor annoyance. The KoolWire site is in Italian and, although an English option is offered, it is less than complete. Still, it's not hard to work out what you have to do.

Conversion quality was good, but on my sample file the converted RTF file was not quite as good as ZamZar. Two of the document's pages mysteriously ended up as tables, and the image quality was poorer. On the other hand KoolWire got the big drop capital correct, though at the expense of messing the left justification of the paragraph that contained it. At 869KB, the converted file was similar in size to the 829KB ZamZar file.

Overall, both these free conversion services are good though not perfect. Which one gives the best conversion will probably depend on the document being converted, so why not try both?
 

Gizmo