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2012Tony2012

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Dec 2, 2012
741
3
I really need to convert a PDF file, which contains text and pictures, into a DOC format that I can import into OpenOffice.

Any free app for Mountain Lion that can do that please?

IF that's not possible, is there a way to edit a PDF file text on Mountain Lion?
 

saberahul

macrumors 68040
Nov 6, 2008
3,645
111
USA
The only way I know if acrobat (which does a pretty good job) but will charge you a lot. I've heard that PDF pen can do same but haven't tried. Don't know any free ones though I'm sure you could use the online ones - just google it. They require you to upload your document so I don't trust them.
 

RedCroissant

Suspended
Aug 13, 2011
2,268
96
I really need to convert a PDF file, which contains text and pictures, into a DOC format that I can import into OpenOffice.

Any free app for Mountain Lion that can do that please?

IF that's not possible, is there a way to edit a PDF file text on Mountain Lion?

Well, there's a way to do it and if the document isn't very long, you should be able to take care of it fairly quickly. Be warned though, this requires reformatting the document before you save it as a .doc to make sure what you wanted to convert it from looks the same.

What I just did to test it was to create a regular document in Pages with one picture that I imported into the document(a small map of the Aegean). I then exported it as a .pdf to my desktop. Once that was done, I used Preview to open it. I used the tool at the top to select the text and selected all(Command + A). Then I simply pasted it into LibreOffice. Then I use the select tool to select the photo, went to the edit menu and selected "copy." I then pasted that into LibreOffice(command + v) as well and then went through the document in LibreOffice to make sure the formatting was as close as possible to the original and saved it as a .doc. Overall it took less than 5 minutes to make sure the formatting was the same and that the picture was in the right sport with the text placed as perfectly as possible. This was only a 3-page pdf with one picture though so if yours is more than that with multiple pictures, then I would say 15 minutes.

It's not perfect but I think it is doable and will save you a bunch of money.

I also have Pages and using that made it much easier to move the images back to where they are supposed to be with the document inspector.

I don't know how long the document is or how many pictures there are, but I seriously doubt you'd have a problem with this.
 
Last edited:

RickyB

macrumors regular
Oct 28, 2007
210
6
If you have a Microsoft account (e.g. A hotmail account) I think you can upload PDFs and convert them to Word that way (if I'm wrong then it could be Google Drive)
 
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