How to edit a PDF in Word
A PDF is designed to look the same everywhere, not to be typed on. That is why the real route goes through Word.
4 minute read
Why you cannot type straight onto a PDF
A PDF does not store paragraphs or sentences: it stores drawing instructions. "Put this letter at this exact point on the page". That is why it looks identical on any computer, phone or printer, and precisely why there is nowhere to type.
To edit it, the text has to be rebuilt from that drawing. That is exactly what converting to Word does.
The route, step by step
Open the PDF to Word tool and drop your file in.
Download the DOCX it produces and open it in Word, LibreOffice or Google Docs. Any of the three works.
Make your changes. The text is text now: you can select it, delete it and rewrite it normally.
When you are done, save as PDF again. In Word that is File → Save as → PDF; in LibreOffice, File → Export as PDF.
What survives and what does not. Plainly
The conversion rebuilds, it does not trace. In short:
- Text survives well. It is what you came to edit and it is what holds up best.
- Paragraph breaks and bold usually hold.
- The exact layout does not. A three-column leaflet with floating text boxes will come out reasonable, but not identical. If the document is very visual, expect to touch it up.
- Tables come out as tables when the PDF draws them with lines. If they are just text aligned with spaces, they come out as text.
An ordinary document (a letter, a contract, an essay, a report) ends up perfectly editable. That is the case for the vast majority of people searching for this.
If you want the detail of what survives in each format, it is in the guide on converting a PDF to Word, Excel or PowerPoint.
If your PDF is a scan, there is a step before
If you cannot select the text with your mouse when you open the PDF, it is not a document: it is a photo of a document. Converting it to Word will give you an image pasted on a page, and you still will not be able to edit anything.
The answer is text recognition (OCR): it reads the image and works out which letters are there. Run it through the OCR tool first, and with the text extracted you can edit it wherever you like.
What if I only want to fill in a form or sign?
Then you do not need to edit anything. Many form PDFs already carry fillable fields: open it in your browser viewer and try clicking on the dotted lines.
If it has none, the quickest route is usually to print it, fill it by hand, photograph it and rebuild it as a PDF with the images-to-PDF tool. Less elegant, and it always works.
Why do it here rather than anywhere else
A PDF you need to edit is usually a contract, a payslip or a document with your details on it. Here your files are never uploaded to a server: we do not receive them at any point, so there is no copy to delete and nobody who could open it.