When working with electronic documentation, sometimes there is a problem with opening files of some formats. For example, PDF. To solve this problem, invented programs called file converters. The article will tell about what it is and how to use it.
What is a converter?
This is an application or an online service that allows you to change the format of the source file to its sister. For example, pdf in doc (docx) or vice versa. The purpose of this transformation is:
- The ability to open a file and extract information from it.
- Save space on your hard drive.
In the first case, using a converter (PDF to Word or another format) allows you to open and edit files without installing special programs, the cost of which is sometimes large enough for one-time use.
In the second case, the converted file takes several times less space on the hard drive. For example, a PDF document "weighs" 40 megabytes, and its counterpart in DOC or DOCX (Word) - 5 or 10 megabytes, along with all the illustrations.
Where to convert
To convert files from one format to another, there are 2 types of converters: stationary programs and cloud services. The most famous representatives of the first group are Nitro Pro 9 and ABBYY PDF Transformer +.
Their main advantage over cloud services is autonomy. The disadvantages include the fact that in such converters the speed of converting documents greatly depends on the computing capabilities of the computer.
There are many online services for this purpose. Popular and convenient include:
- PDF2DOC project.
- FreePDFConvert.
- PDF.IO.
The main advantage of such services is complete free of charge and high speed of file processing. The disadvantages include the need for a stable and fast Internet connection for uploading a file to the server and then downloading the processing result.
Nitro pro 9
This is a complete application for working with the PDF format. It allows you to:
- Create and merge PDF files.
- Edit them.
- Convert to documents that can be opened by one of the programs included in Microsoft Office 2003 or 2007.
- Protect files with a password or digital certificate from editing and conversion in primitive PDF converters. Free PDF to DOC Converter, for example.
Unfortunately, the support of the Russian language in this converter is such that it is better to forget about text recognition using the built-in OCR engine.
But he easily copes with languages that use Latin: English, German, Italian, French, etc.
Help: OCR is one way to recognize characters in images for later editing.
The program can still convert PDF files in Russian while preserving the formatting, but they must be initially created using a text editor, and not from scanned images.
ABBYY PDF Transformer +
This is a domestic development program created for the same purpose as Nitro Pro 9.
In general, it is very similar to the previous product, but differs in a couple of important details:
- More formats to convert. It allows you to convert PDF to Word, PowerPoint, Excel, HTML, Epub, FB2, RTF and ODT (Open / Libre Office Writer).
- OCR-engine of its own design with full support for the Russian language. It is also capable of recognizing text containing Russian and English.
The main disadvantage is that such a converter is quite expensive - about $ 100 per copy (the price on the official website is 5,990 rubles).
Online services
The first file conversion service is PDF2DOC. It allows you to not only convert PDF to Word, but also to other formats: TXT, JPEG, PNG.
On an adjacent project called ToPDF, PDF creation is available from 20 file formats, which include:
- * .doc and * .docx (Word).
- * .xlx * .xlsx (Excel).
- * .ppt * .pptx (PowerPoint).
- All types of graphics: PNG, JPEG, TIFF, GIF.
- RTF
- Txt.
- Epub and FB2.
- HTML
- Djvu.
In addition to transformations and creation, the project allows you to combine and reduce the size of existing PDF documents. The service is completely free and allows you to process up to 20 files sequentially.
The second popular substitute for converting to Word from PDF is a service called FreePDFConvert.
Its capabilities are somewhat more modest than that of the previous project. It allows you to convert PDF to Word (* .doc; * .docx; * .rtf), Excel and PowerPoint. In addition to converting to basic formats, "disassembling into parts" is available in the form of images in the following formats:
- JPEG (*. Jpg or * .jpeg).
- PNG (*. Png).
- TIFF (*. Tiff).
The service also allows you to create your own PDF-files from images with the extension * .jpg.
This project is shareware. For a subscription costing $ 9 (month), $ 39 (half a year), $ 69 (year) or $ 99 (forever), the user gets the opportunity to convert their files without any restrictions on the number or queue. Document security using 256-bit encryption is also available.
PDF site. IO, in addition to standard conversions of PDF documents to Microsoft Office software package formats and vice versa, allows limited work with this type of file:
- Cut parts of the document and create new ones from them.
- Combine them together.
- Reduce the size.
- Add and remove password and encryption protection.
- Number the sheets and rotate them.
The service is completely free, there are no restrictions on the size or number of converted files.
There are many ways to convert PDF files to DOC. For one-time conversions, it is better to use one of the listed online services. For regular file conversions of this format, it is better to purchase any PDF document converter program.