How to import acrobat PDF files into Word, please?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jack Sheet
  • Start date Start date
J

Jack Sheet

I regularly encounter forms that are available in PDF format. Unhelpfully,
they have not been created with editable input fields (where such fields
would be expected). I have in the past printed hard copies of the forms and
filled them in manually. I am now advised that a way to complete them
on-screen would be to import the files into a Word document, then create
blank text boxes located over the input fields and bring the text boxes
permanently to the front. I fall at the first hurdle, however, because I
cannot find a way to import the PDF document into a Word file. Help,
please?

Office XP 2002

Thanks
 
OK, have a solution of sorts, but still some problems:

Solution requires opening the PDF file in Acrobat reader, and printing to
Fax driver, which permits saving the output as a BMP file.
Then in Word, import the BMP file as a picture. Reduce all page margins to
zero and drag the picture to maximise its size within the page, preserving
aspect ratio.
I lose the colours, but I expect there is a way around that by configuring
the fax driver, and if not I can live with it.

Remaining problem seems to be in manipulating the text boxes so that they
sit over the input fields accurately. There are two problems:

1) In resizing and moving the text boxes, there seems to be some sort of
"snap-to-grid" option enabled and I cannot work out how to disable it so as
to fine-tune the positioning of the text boxes (the implied "grid" is too
widely spaced).

2) When I try to drag the text box around the page it leaps about to
unpredictable locations that have no apparent relationship to where I move
the mouse. I can overcome it by using the bar at the extreme left of the
screen to drag the top and bottom of the text box, but it is not an ideal
solution.

The whole thing seems unwieldy, and I guess I am doing something wrong. It
all looked to go pearshaped when I first created a text box and it prompted
me to do it in a canvass that was outside the location of the picture image.
 
Word has no means of importing PDF files.

1. Use a table (or tables) rather than text boxes.
2. The grid is set from the drawing toolbar
3. Faxes don't normally do colour!
4. You can turn off the drawing canvas from tools > options.
5. It sounds as though you are inserting text boxes in line, in which case
they behave like (large) text characters.

--
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Graham Mayor - Word MVP

My web site www.gmayor.com

<>>< ><<> ><<> <>>< ><<> <>>< <>><<>
 
Thanks Graham
I had a play around before your response and got close to the required
solution by sticking with text boxes as follows (but I will try your
suggestion as am still not happy with it):

My kludgy solution was to create a single text box of the same size and
location as, and superimposed onto, the whole of the BMP image contained in
the Word document. Then format the text box so that borders are invisible
and the box is 100% transparent and brought to the front. Reduce line
spacing, margins etc within the text box to zero. Reduce the font size to
as small as can be lived with. Fill the entire text box with space
characters. Turn editing from insert mode to overstrike mode, then click
the mouse into the area required and type away.
 
Get the most recent version of Adobe's readyer (7.x?).
You have to do text & graphics separately, but you can
"select all" and then copy\paste it into a Word
document.

There are also free PDF converters; search on google.



in message
 
When I try this, I get a little blue box is all
John



PopS said:
Get the most recent version of Adobe's readyer (7.x?). You have to do text
& graphics separately, but you can "select all" and then copy\paste it
into a Word document.

There are also free PDF converters; search on google.
Click to expand...
 
This method would be a little hit and miss depending on th security level
set in the pdf. The only ways to get pdf into Word are to use a converter
such as Acrobat (the full version) or one of its cheaper clones (suggestions
linked from the favourites page of my web site)
or
to output the pdf (assuming printing is not inhibited) to a graphics format
using a tool like SnagIt www.techsmith.com

--
<>>< ><<> ><<> <>>< ><<> <>>< <>><<>
Graham Mayor - Word MVP

My web site www.gmayor.com

<>>< ><<> ><<> <>>< ><<> <>>< <>><<>
 
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