How to convert Adobe Acrobat to Msoft office (ppt or doc) file?

[MamaMoose]

I need to convert an Adobe Acrobat .pdf file to a PowerPoint or Word document. The reason is someone asked me to do this because they need to edit the document but they do not have the full Acrobat just Acrobat Reader. I do have Acrobat 7 bhut cannot figure how to make the conversion to ,ppt or .doc. All attempts result in errpr messages.

Is ther a work-around or a trick to do this or is it hopeless?

MamaMoose

[Texas Mac Man]

Click on the "T" in Reader which allows you to copy portions (or all) of the PDF file. Then paste into a new Word document. Might work.

[RHPConsult]

Tom:  

As TMacM – our Texus Tom – recommends, using the "T" (as in touchup) Tool to cut and paste one lousy line at a time may be the only alternative for you.

I had to do that with a brief document (not that brief!) just last weekend.

With a "full" Acrobat package, there oughtta be a simpler way, but I searched Adobe Help (such as it is) top to bottom and couldn't find one. What did we pay those big bucks for, if other than in a "form" one can't tweak a pdf.

Let's hope some TeeEssers have some other ideas.

[Paddy]

RHP, Tom is talking about selecting and copying and pasting all the text, I think. You can do that with Reader. But you lose all paragraph breaks and it gets pretty difficult to read! You can also save something as a plain text document with Acrobat READER, or in various formats with varying degrees of success with the full version of Acrobat. If the original was in Word, and pretty straightforward, it seems to work pretty seamlessly to save it as a Word document directly. Heaven help you if you have a two-column document though - you'll end up with word salad; the columns are ignored, so you end up with half a sentence from one column and half a sentence from the adjoining column. Nothing seemed to work with a multi-column document.

There are commercial PDF to Word converters, but they all seem to be for Windoze.

[MamaMoose]

Thanks gang. The original document was PowerPoint for Windows. So there has to be a way to convert the graphics. You are right Dick, I got no help from Adobe. One thing I will try is to open the ,pdf file in Preview and see what happens. Or perhaps generate a PostScript version!

MamaMoose

[jcarter]

I dont know much about this, but I wonder if you could use NeoOffice?
I opened a PowerPoint National Geographic photography slide show the other day, by just dragging the PowerPoint file onto the NeoOffice icon in my dock, and it sure turned into a nice full screen show.
I dont know if it could be done the other way around.
Try NeoOffice anyway,,,,,see what happens
Jane

[Xairbusdriver]

Going from PowerPoint to PDF probably lost a lot of the original info in the file. May not be anything left except the ( formatted? ) text and the images. More conversions may lose even more 'data'. But I just opened a PDF in Preview and copied a text selection. Pasting it into MarinerWrite did not lose the paragraphs. But the paragraph spacing was flakey. The original probably used leading(?) that is not copied exactly with the clipboard, even though there was some extra space between paragraphs.

The font and size seemed to copy fine. But my sample may be too limited in that respect.

Should you get the original powerpoint document, it should load into KeyNote and even icWord. From icWord, you can save to text, RTF ( possibly saving some formatting ), NisusWriter, Unicode or AppleWorks 5 or 6. Of course, if its really just images, you won't get much 'text'. And if you don't have the original, the whole exercise is moot.

[Paddy]

Ah...images. Images are problematic; once embedded in a PDF, you've got problems getting them back out again within the document. However, you can use the Snapshot tool (looks like a camera in the Advanced Editing toolbar) to copy your images to the clipboard and then paste them into Word. Seems to work very well, though a tad tedious if you have a lot of images and your document is long and complicated. But, it's doable!

Jane, NeoOffice can't open PDFs or convert from them any better than Word, unfortunately. I tried. Every which way. No go.

So just how long and involved is this PDF?

[jcarter]

I am glad you clued me in, as I almost never ever have to use anything Microsoft.
NeoOffice does what I need, and more.
But will sometime, and that will be when I have a MacTel, perhaps.
I will need advice on Windowz programs, such as the Fractal plug-ins for Photoshop.
That is a winter project,,,,,,,too much going on around here outdoors now.
Jane

[Gregg]

QUOTE(jcarter @ Oct 18 2006, 05:51 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I almost never ever have to use anything Microsoft.

Lucky you! I was just commenting yesterday how AutoCad is taking after MS Word - thinking for me, and doing things I do not want it to do. Most likely there are settings buried in its bowels to disable the annoying behaviors. I don't know where those are, nor do I know for Word.

[MamaMoose]

I tried opening the .pdf file in Preview. After that, I selected some text and tried to copy it, but got an error message that I had to enter na password before I could use any edit function! So, I gave up and hope the person who asked for my help (we were at a conference where this was presented) can find some way for her to get at this as she needs to present some info that the file contains. She can also contact the author of the document and try to get his original PowerPoint document.

I don't see the point of ,pdf as a "universal" format if you cannot edit a .pdf document. I could not do it even when I opened the file in the full Acrobat Pro. As far as I'm concerned Adobe ,pdf files are far from "universal".

MamaMoose

MamaMoose

[jcarter]

Gee, I sure dont understand anything much to do with MS Word, and hope to heavens that I dont ever have to deal with it, beyond having NeoOffice open their files for me.

Another big reason to use Macs and bypass the world of Microsoft and Windows.
Alas, that is not what everyone can do.  Our kids included.  So they end up having to purchase Word or Office or whatever you wannacallit for Mac.

I sure am happy I dont have to get this stuff, as its sure beyond my old brain, thank goodness.  
Preview and NeoOffice does all I will ever need, I hope.
Jane

[Xairbusdriver]

Well, I know my version is not the latest, but it very easily selects/copies and pastes into MarinerWrite any text I want. Maybe because I set the prefs that way, but when I open a PDF, the "Text Tool" is already selected, so make sure that is the 'tool' being used. There is also a 'square marque' tool that selects stuff in an adjustable box on the document. What it copies is an 'image' of whatever is in the box. I had no trouble selecting something and pasting it into TexEdit Plus. Of course, it's an image, so one can't 'edit' any text in it. The other 'tools' are for inserting 'sticky notes' and for 'grabbing' the page if you have scroll bars showing because the display can't show all of what's on the page.

However, in none of these operations did I have any request for a password or even a suggestion that I should say "Pretty please?". Could the document you were attempting to copy have been 'protected' in some way? I think that is possible when created with the 'full' program, just to prevent the things that you were attempting. If this is the document that you could not edit in Acrobat Pro, it may, in some way, be 'locked' expressly to prevent editing.

[dboh]

If you go into "Document Properties" and click on the Security tab, you'll see what kind of security has been set up for the document. Sometimes they don't allow editing. That can be reset if you have the full version of Acrobat.

There is a separate setting for passwords (sort of like a fool-proof security), but only the person who created the pdf can change that.

I also looked under "Preferences" and "Convert from PDF" and saw that it is possible to convert to Word. Have you tried going into Word and opening the pdf from there?