This article will show you how to copy the content of a PDF document and paste it into a Microsoft Word (or similar) document. If the PDF was created on your computer from a text document, you can use the free Adobe Acrobat Reader to copy the text; if the PDF was scanned from a physical document, or the file is copy-protected, use Google Drive to recognize and convert the text. You can also use an online converter to convert your PDF file directly to a Microsoft Word document.
Steps
Method 1 of 3: Using Adobe Acrobat Reader
Step 1. Launch Acrobat Reader
Adobe Acrobat Reader DC is a free PDF viewer. Depending on the type of PDF file in this program, you can select and copy text.
If you don't have Adobe Reader on your computer, download and install this program
Step 2. Open the PDF file
Click File> Open, select the PDF document you want, and then click Open in the lower-right corner of the window.
If Adobe Reader is the program that opens PDF documents by default, simply double-click the desired PDF to open it in Acrobat Reader
Step 3. Click Edit
It's in the upper-left side of the Acrobat Reader window. A dropdown menu will open.
Step 4. Click Select All
It's in the Edit drop-down menu. All text (but not images) that is on the page will be highlighted.
If both pictures and text are selected, the contents of the document cannot be copied. In this case, please use Google Drive
Step 5. Click on Edit again and then press Copy.
The selected text will be copied.
If the PDF contains multiple pages, you will have to copy the page contents separately (when pasting the contents of the current page)
Step 6. Open another document
Do it in Microsoft Word, Pages or Google Docs.
You can also use a simple text editor such as Notepad or TextEdit, but in this case the format of the copied text will not be preserved
Step 7. Paste the copied text
Press Ctrl + V (Windows) or ⌘ Command + V (Mac OS X). The text you copied from the PDF will be pasted into the open document.
- If you pressed these keys but nothing happened, click on a blank document page and try again.
- Alternatively, you can right-click on the page and choose Paste from the menu.
Method 2 of 3: Using Google Drive
Step 1. Use this method if your PDF contains text encoded as an image
If a PDF is created by scanning a physical document, it is a graphic file, not a text file. To convert an image into text that can be selected, you need to use an optical character recognition (OCR) program. Google Drive includes a free OCR program that you can use in most cases.
If the PDF is copy-protected, Google Drive will remove the protection during the optical character recognition process
Step 2. Open the Google Drive website
Go to https://drive.google.com/ in a web browser. Your Google Drive page will open if you're signed in to your account.
If you haven't logged in yet, enter your Gmail email address and password
Step 3. Click Create
It's a blue button in the upper-left corner of the Drive page. A dropdown menu will open.
Step 4. Click Upload File
It's near the top of the drop-down menu. A new window will open.
Step 5. Select a PDF document
Click on the required PDF file.
You may need to open the document folder first by clicking on it on the left side of the window
Step 6. Click Open
It's in the lower-right side of the window. The PDF will be uploaded to Google Drive.
Step 7. Select the downloaded PDF file
When the document is loaded, click on it to select.
Step 8. Click on ⋮
This icon is at the top of the page. A dropdown menu will open.
Step 9. Select Open with
It's near the top of the drop-down menu. A pop-up menu will open.
Step 10. Click Google Docs
You will find this option in the dropdown menu. Google Drive converts PDF document to Google Docs format; it will take some time, depending on the size of the PDF document.
Step 11. Check the quality of the text conversion
The OCR program that comes with Google Drive is not perfect, so the text may contain errors and some portions of the text may not be converted at all. Moreover, there may be extra spaces in the text, so go through the entire text to see how well it has been converted.
If you find any mistakes, correct them (in Google Docs) before copying the text
Step 12. Select the text
Click Edit at the top left of the page, and then click Select All from the drop-down menu.
Step 13. Copy the text
Click Edit again, and then click Copy.
Step 14. Open another document
Do it in Microsoft Word, Pages or Google Docs.
You can also use a simple text editor such as Notepad or TextEdit, but in this case the format of the copied text will not be preserved
Step 15. Paste the copied text
Press Ctrl + V (Windows) or ⌘ Command + V (Mac OS X). The text you copied from the PDF will be pasted into the open document.
- If you pressed these keys but nothing happened, click on a blank document page and try again.
- Alternatively, you can right-click on the page and choose Paste from the menu.
Method 3 of 3: How to Convert a PDF Document to a Word Document
Step 1. Open the pdf2doc service website
Go to the page http://pdf2doc.com/ru/ in a browser.
This site does not copy or paste text - it converts the PDF to Word document straight away
Step 2. Click Download
This button is located in the middle of the page. A new window will open.
Step 3. Select a PDF document
Click on the required PDF file.
You may need to open the document folder first by clicking on it on the left side of the window
Step 4. Click Open
It's in the lower-right side of the window. The PDF will be uploaded to the pdf2doc site.
Step 5. Click Download
This button will appear under the name of the PDF document when the conversion is complete. The PDF will download to your computer as a Word document.
- To open and edit a Word document, double-click it.
- Keep in mind that PDFs that were created by scanning physical documents are graphics, not text files. In this case, you still have to use Google Drive.