For example, PDF stores a table as a set of lines without any relationship to the content inside the table cells.ĭifferent programs represent the same content using different structures in PDF files. Most PDFs don’t include information about structural content elements, such as paragraphs, tables, or columns. PDF is a fixed file format, which means the file stores the location of text, pictures, and vector graphics on a page, but not necessarily the relationships among them. If your PDF includes these, you might want to open it directly rather than converting it to a Word document:įont effects, like Glow or Shadow (in the Word file, the effects are represented by graphics) Some elements are known to be problematic when converting from PDF to Word format. Document elements that don’t convert well For example, if Word doesn’t recognize a footnote, it treats the footnote as regular text and might not put it at the bottom of the page. Sometimes, Word doesn’t detect an element, and so the Word version doesn’t match the original PDF file. When that happens, the text can’t be edited. If the PDF contains mostly charts or other graphics, the whole page might show up as an image. But when you open a PDF file in Word, it might not look exactly the way it looked as a PDF. You always have the original PDF file, in case you don't want to keep the version that Word converts.Ĭonverting from PDF to Word works best with files that are mostly text-for example, business, legal, or scientific documents. Word makes a copy of the PDF, converting it to a Word document and attempting to match layout of the original PDF. However, if you want to edit the PDF file, go ahead and open it in Word. It is intended as a passive container format for presentation information.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).

PDF was billed as 'Paper without the chase' when it was introduced in 1993. However, editing the PDF does not work well even for very, very limited changes and for major changes editing does not work at all. There are two applications that can open PDF, Adobe Illustrator whose internal format was the source of the PDF format, and Adobe Acrobat editions other than the free Reader. The authoring application writes its internal format into the external format of a page description and the internal format is lost - the page description is not editable. The idea behind Adobe PostScript and Adobe PDF is to create a page description that is INDEPENDENT of the authoring application and the font software used in the authoring application. Interesting question, since the question shows a problem in documentation. pdf file in pages? I received new letterhead and I would like to be able to use it.

How to open a pdf on pages