PDF to Word Quick Reference

• Product Overview
• Where to Start?
• How to Adjust the Program to Your Needs?
• How to Convert PDF files to Different Formats?
• PDF File Security

Product Overview

Solid PDF to Word for Mac is a utility for converting portable document format (PDF) files to other file formats. PDF is a universal document standard for creating universally readable documents that maintain document integrity. However, PDF is not easily edited. By converting the document to other formats, Solid PDF to Word for Mac makes the content from your PDF document editable. The wide range of output formats offered for converting files provides you with more flexibility in re-using the PDF file content. Solid PDF to Word for Mac creates documents of exceptional quality, so you can save your time by not reformatting and reworking your converted output.

Where to Start?

Launch the program by clicking the Solid PDF to Word for Mac icon in your Applications folder, in the Dock, or on your desktop or use any other way you prefer.

The Solid PDF to Word for Mac window opens.

When you are using the program for the first time we recommend that you review and edit the default program settings to make Solid PDF to Word for Mac work exactly as you personally need it. You can at any time click Preferences to update the program settings. Read more about How to Adjust the Program to Your Needs.

However if you need to quickly change preferences for a certain conversion you can use the Conversion Settings choices in the main program window.

How to Adjust the Program to Your Needs?

To ensure that Solid PDF to Word for Mac works to your specifications, click the Preferences button before using the program. Check the parameters and make any necessary changes. Adjust your settings to meet your most common conversion needs. Click the Reset Defaults button at any time to restore the settings to program defaults.

Save

You can specify the default folder for saving the converted files and choose the program behavior when the target file already exists. You can also specify some conversion preferences and select whether to open the converted file when the conversion is finished.

Target Path - Select a folder to which the converted output will be saved. You can click ... to navigate to the target folder.

Detect Tables - Detects tables in PDF file when the page layout is recognized using flowing or continuous reconstruction mode. This option is ideal for text documents but not for documents with specific layout requirements such as brochures.

Prompt before overwriting - Select the program behavior if the output file exists. You can choose Show Warning to display a warning message, or Replace to overwrite the existing file.

Launch in associated application - Opens the default editor program that is associated with the output file.

Layout and Formatting

Choose the reconstruction mode that is most appropriate to your PDF files. When choosing the reconstruction mode consider the main purpose and intended use of the content.

If you need to make slight changes such as updating the address, telephone number, or name your perfect choice is the Exact reconstruction mode. The Exact mode is ideal for forms, advertisements, invitations, posters. When applying the Exact reconstruction mode the output file contains the text placed into Microsoft Word text boxes. This precisely retains the initial PDF document look, however it may be inconvenient for later document changes.

The Flowing mode conversion suits most for performing further text editing. Use Flowing mode if you are going to significantly update the converted file and you need to keep the original formatting.

The Continuous reconstruction mode recovers paragraph formatting and leaves inline images and tables. Continuous mode will place the converted text consistently even though the original PDF is multi-column document.

Flowing - Recovers page layout, columns, formatting, and graphics, and preserves text flow.

Continuous - Does not retain the exact layout of the document. Correctly reconstructs the text order but will only recover paragraph formatting, graphics, and text flow.

Exact - Uses Word text boxes to ensure that the text and graphic layout in the Word document is the same as the PDF file. This mode is also used to convert PDF forms into editable Word forms. This mode should not be used if you need to make numerous edits to large blocks of content. It is most useful for short artistic or brochure-like documents.

Auto-rotate pages based on text orientation - Changes the page orientation to match the text direction.

Headers and Footers

For PDF documents with headers and footers you can select how to treat headers and footers when converting to Word. Depending on the reconstruction mode you have selected different options are available. For Flowing mode all headers and footers options are available. For Continuous you can select - Remove and Place in the body of the document option. When converting in Exact mode headers and footers are always treated as ordinary text and placed into the body of the document.

Recover as headers and/or footers - Select to detect headers and footers and add them as Microsoft Word headers and footers in the output file. The content will appear throughout the entire document.

Place in the body of the document - Select to handle headers and footers as ordinary text. The content will be placed into the output file in separate text boxes throughout the entire document.

Remove - Select if you want to detect headers and footers and remove them from the output document.

Text Recovery

These preferences control the conversion of symbols in the situation where there are missing or incorrect font encoding detected during the conversion process. Adjusting these preferences may help when the text or some symbols in the converted file look garbled.

Every character - Apply text recovery to all characters.

Problem characters only - Let the program determine where text recovery is required.

None - Turn off text recovery.

Plain Text

You can use this mode when you only need to get the unformatted text content of your PDF file. For Plain Text output you can specify the string length for your output text document. The Plain Text preferences you have specified will be used in Solid PDF to Word for Mac as default when converting PDF files to plain text.

Line Length - type in the desired number of characters per string for the output document.

How to Convert PDF files to Different Formats?

First you need to select the PDF file(s) that you want to convert. To do this in the Solid PDF to Word for Mac window click the Choose files... button and in the Choose files to convert window then navigate and select one or more files for conversion. Click Choose to place the file into the Files to convert list. You can use the Clear files button to remove the selected files from the list.

After you have the PDF files listed in the Files to convert box you can just start the conversion or change the default conversion settings.

When you are sure that all settings are correct you can press the Convert button to start the conversion process.

The Solid PDF to Word for Mac progress dialog will display during the process.

When the conversion is finished the output file will open if you have selected Launch in associated application in Save preferences.

PDF File Security

Solid PDF to Word for Mac respects the security settings created in the PDF file. PDF files can be set up to restrict viewing, printing, editing and copying. Sometimes the security settings do not prevent viewing the PDF file, but these settings may not allow users to print or copy the PDF file content. If security settings are set in the PDF file that you are recovering, you will be prompted for the password to continue conversion.