Guide
How to convert PDF to Word free, step by step
Converting a PDF to Word is usually the first step when you need to edit a contract, refresh an old CV or reuse the text of a report. This guide explains how to do it for free, with nothing to install and without uploading your document to a third party's servers.
Step 1: check that your PDF has selectable text
Open the PDF and try selecting a sentence with your mouse. If you can highlight and copy it, the PDF contains real text and the conversion will work well. If you can't select anything, the PDF is actually an image (a scan or a photo): in that case no text conversion tool — this one included — has any text to extract, and you will first need to run the document through OCR (optical character recognition).
Step 2: load the file into the tool
In our PDF to Word converter, drag the file onto the marked area or click to pick it from your device. There is no account to create and nothing to install. The file is not sent to any server: the conversion happens inside your own browser.
Step 3: wait for the reading engine to warm up
The first time you use the tool in a session, your browser downloads a small PDF reading engine (the same technology Firefox uses to display PDFs). You'll see a progress bar for a few seconds; later conversions in the same session skip that wait entirely.
Step 4: download the .docx and open it
When it finishes, you download a .docx file you can open directly in Microsoft Word, Google Docs or LibreOffice Writer. The text is fully editable: you can correct it, reformat it or copy it into another document.
What to expect from the result
For flowing-text documents — letters, reports, articles, straightforward CVs — the result is very faithful to the original. If your PDF has a complex layout (multiple columns, elaborate tables, images in exact positions), the generated Word file rebuilds the content approximately: the text will be there, but the reading order or the visual arrangement may not match the PDF exactly. No tool that runs purely in the browser can guarantee a pixel-for-pixel replica of a complex layout, and we would rather say so up front than let you discover it when you open the file.
What if I prefer an open format?
If you use LibreOffice or OpenOffice rather than Word, you can convert the same PDF straight to ODT format with the same tool. If you only need the text with no formatting at all, try PDF to TXT.