How to edit a PDF with Word
You’ve got a PDF that needs a small change but you don’t have the Adobe software needed to make it, you end up emailing everyone you know asking if they’re able to help converting the PDF into a Word document.
Sound familiar?
A little known fact is that you can open a PDF directly in Word…
- Open Word
- Go to File >> Open
- Under ‘Other Locations’, select Browse
- Navigate to the folder the PDF you want to open is stored
- Select the PDF
- Click Open
Now you’ve selected the PDF you want to open, you’ll be shown a message stating Word will convert your PDF into an editable Word document, and that it will be optimised so may not look exactly like the original PDF. You just need to click OK to complete the process.
The PDF will now be open and editable in Word – the original PDF won’t be changed.
After making your changes, you can save the document as a Word file, or use the export to PDF function to create a new PDF with your changes.
Caveats
This process isn’t always perfect. It works best with PDFs that are mostly text with only a few images. If it’s a complex PDF, which has multiple images it should still open in Word but is likely to lose some of its formatting.