PDF Scan to Word doc.

If the scanner's software doesn't include Optical Character Recognition (OCR), then the PDF will contain just pictures of the scanned pages. Opening that PDF in Word will also contain just pictures, not editable text.

If you have OneNote, paste the scanned pictures into a OneNote notebook. Right-click a picture and click "Copy Text from Picture" in the menu. That "reads" the picture and puts text on the clipboard, and then you can paste the text into either OneNote or Word. This is very basic OCR; it won't retain the formatting of the original and it may make a lot of errors that will need corrections.

You scanner may include an OCR program in its software bundle. If there is one, try using it. If you need a more capable OCR, use a web search to compare reviews of the many third-party programs that are available.

Since Word 2013, Word has had the ability to directly open pdf document. However, some pdf documents (from scanners mostly) are really pictures of text rather than the text itself. Just as you can't look under the hood of a picture of a car, you can't edit a picture of a document.

In that case, you need to convert the picture to text. This is a process known as optical character recognition. This is built into Adobe Acrobat and is also in Office OneNote. Most scanner software comes with an OCR component as well. Once you have text, you can edit it with Word.

If you simply want to write on the document (but not in it) you can add a Text Box floating on top of the document layer, whether or not it has been put through the OCR process.

Word documents that have been saved as PDF will not need the OCR process, they retain their text, although not all of their Word structure and formatting.

Finally, documents converted from pdf (or really any other format) to Word can be tough to edit because the conversion process never has a one-to-one matching of how formatting is done. This means that a converted document will seldom be formatted in Word in a way that makes sense. An example is multiple section breaks to change margins, where in Word you would simply change the paragraph indent.

You are welcome. I never use converted document for long term use. I copy text only and do the formatting in Word.

Many thanks. Have done the conversion though format not accurate.

Hi KateLumsdaine,

I hope you are having a good day. Here's some information that can help you.

To open a PDF file without converting it to a Word document, open the file directly wherever it's stored (for example, double-click the PDF file in your Documents folder).

However, if you want to edit the PDF file, go ahead and open it in Word. Word makes a copy of the PDF, converting it to a Word document and attempting to match layout of the original PDF. You always have the original PDF file, in case you don't want to keep the version that Word converts.

Converting from PDF to Word works best with files that are mostly text—for example, business, legal, or scientific documents. But when you open a PDF file in Word, it might not look exactly the way it looked as a PDF.

To edit a PDF, simply open it in Word. This works best with PDFs that are mostly text.

Go to File > Open.

Find the PDF, and open it (you might have to select Browse and find the PDF in a folder).

Word tells you that it's going to make a copy of the PDF and convert its contents into a format that Word can display. The original PDF won't be changed at all. Select OK.

For more info:

https://support.office.com/en-us/article/edit-a...

Please, let me know if this was useful or if you need additional assistance.

• David