Acrobat 8 and successful PDFs to Word?

[Chris_Waldron@adobeforums.com]

G'day,

I ordered and have received acrobat 8 partially because 1 client wants a Word file of a large ID CS file I have been working on. Until now I have always told hm it's not possible and the best I could do was to supply a press ready PDF which he could make alterations to as needed for further re-printing.

Then Acrobat 8 came along touting that it could make Word files from PDFs with everything intact just as it's orginal file, e.g ID CS. I checked this claim with Adobe before purchasing and was told that this was true.

I received Acrobat 8 and did a test PDF from the PDF on the supplied CD to a Word file. Didn't work, everything was garbled and out of place. So I thought, maybe it needs to be from a high res PDF with the typefaces embedded, so I tried this. Now I am angry as this didn't work.

I'm running 10.4.6, MS Word 10. whatever the newest increment version it is. Does 10.x of Word not work and it needs to be v11.x? Or is this really a promise that just doesn't work?

[Leonard_Rosenthol@adobeforums.com]

Can you post the PDF for others to see what the problem is? Or at least screen shots?

Leonard

[pjonesCET@adobeforums.com]

How are you doing it. I use acrobat 7.0.8, and 8 In 7.0.8 just go to save as and in File type choose Word Document. on a large document (more than 2 pages it takes a while for it to do so.

When you open the document it shows Tabs 2 tenths of an inch as if save as an RTF document. but everything is there. Once you adjust as needed you need to resave again.

[Chris_Waldron@adobeforums.com]

G'day,

pjonesCET, you say "When you open the document it shows Tabs 2 tenths of an inch as if save as an RTF document. but everything is there. Once you adjust as needed you need to resave again."

How am I doing it? Exactly as per instructions.

Tried that and it's carp. Sure, there where a couple of the box area things, tried to drag them out nothing happened. But I created a20+ page Word file - why the heck should I have to go into the Word file adjust these things you're talking about? I need to make a 310pp Word file for my client from the original ID CS file, dragging boxes in Word that don't appear or do on a couple of pages out of 310 isn't what or how it should have to be done.

Acrobat 8 is pure rubbish, so far as creating Word files from PDFs! BTW, I'm talking about v8, not 7.0.8

Leonard, I'll try to get up a screen shot of the Word file, but maybe in the meantime try crfeating a Word file from the PDF on the install CD and see if you get a garbled mixed up PDF that is nothing like the original PDF. I'd be interested to see what you get.

[Leonard_Rosenthol@adobeforums.com]

I don't have the install CD - but all the files I've tried here with Acrobat 8 look pretty good. Certainly not perfect, but pretty good.

Leonard

[Chris_Waldron@adobeforums.com]

G'day Leonard,

You say not perfect but pretty good.

What version of Word do you have? Maybe that's my problem.

But given that I have a 310pp document from ID CS to re-create (if possible, if not I'll fall back to plan a, which were supply the client with a high res PDF).

I need perfect, if not it seems I've wasted my money.

Thanks for your help.

[Aandi_Inston@adobeforums.com]

>But given that I have a 310pp document from ID CS to re-create (if possible, if not I'll fall back to plan a, which were supply the client with a high res PDF).

You are trying to go from InDesign to Word via PDF? I have a general
rule for conversion: if you want to convert from X to Y you will never
get as good a result going from X to PDF and PDF to Y. Information is
lost in going to PDF, which might have made the conversion to Y
better.

Also, Word just is NOT a substitute for InDesign. It doesn't have the
layout flexibilty, so if you have an InDesign document that is laid
out in more than a basic form, Word probably can't handle it. Also,
Word does not fix page layout; an InDesign document may have things
precisely set on pages, but Word cannot.

Going via PDF also loses any sense of text flow, columns etc. which
forces much guesswork. (This may not apply if the file is tagged: be
sure you exported from InDesign with tags, if available).

I'd recommend looking into some way of exporting text and styles from
InDesign, then import that into Word and redefine the styles as
needed; then re-add the pictures and fiddle with the layout.

Aandi Inston

[MikeKazlow@adobeforums.com]

I'll add to what Aandi says with a little more future advice. If you
are going to need a workflow that has Word in it, you should do all
the work in Word BEFORE you consider using any DTP program. After all
the content has been approved, then set the type, graphics and layout
in ID. No roundtripping as it causes much unnecessary work. Almost no
program that changes document format will preserve everything. You'll
even find that people here will tell you not to change versions of ID
in the middle of a project, because importing from one version of ID
to the next, can have unfortunate and unforseen effects.

Mike

[graffiti]

because importing from one version of ID to the next, can have unfortunate
and unforseen effects.





Yup. Also, you can have the exact problem going to/from different versions of Word (or Pagemaker or any other DTP application).

[pjonesCET@adobeforums.com]

Its possible that it was originally a word document and that he needs to go back to word to correct some text in the document. At least up until 8 Acrobat wasn't a word processing program.

Sinnce I have 8 I'll have to test uot and see what happens and report back

[graffiti]

Its possible that it was originally a word document




Except that he mentioned that it was originally an InDesign CS file. :)

[pjonesCET@adobeforums.com]

If it was an indesign document I don't see how it could convert to a Word document.

[graffiti]

I think that's the point Aandi was getting to. There are some things you can do in InDesign that you absolutely can't duplicate in Word. If you have ANY items like that in your PDF then, it'll mess the whole conversion up.

[pjonesCET@adobeforums.com]

By the way I have checked the creation of a word document using acrobat 8 and it works fine. Does like I described as before the document looks similar to a .rtf document. has tab markers about every 1/8 of an inch or so, but once you resave document the addition tab markers disappear.

[Jim Clements]

Guys...
I think you're mis-reading Chris. From what I gather, he didn't start out intending the ID project be converted into a Word doc. His client threw him this nasty monkey-wrench after his work was completed. He's merely trying to find a way to do it. And, since ID doesn't create Word docs, he's trying to use something that does...Acrobat8.

A lot of you seem to be criticizing him for going from ID to PDF to Word. Just how should Chris be creating a PDF for conversion to Word, if not by using ID (or Illustrator? or Photoshop? Or some other app?) I mean...the PDF has to be created somewhere. Sure, if he had known up-front about the need to provide a Word doc, he would've planned accordingly. But that wasn't an option, apparently. I can certainly sympathize with him. I've had clients request the very same thing...a Word version of complex layouts (so they can "update" the text when they need) I usually give them the "can't be done" line, too.

This gets to a further question...What are Acrobat's limitations in converting PDF to Word accurately? Plain text columns with a couple of square-cropped pics only? Just how complex of a PDF can be converted before things go haywire?

[Aandi_Inston@adobeforums.com]

>A lot of you seem to be criticizing him for going from ID to PDF to Word.

Yes. Because the conversion should be direct, InDesign to Word. PDF
does not do anything to make it easier, improve quality, or anything
else.

Aandi Inston

[Chris_Waldron@adobeforums.com]

G'day Jim,

Jim has hit it on the head, a point which has been lost on otheres. Your question, "What are Acrobat's limitations in converting PDF to Word accurately? Plain text columns with a couple of square-cropped pics only? Just how complex of a PDF can be converted before things go haywire?" Is somethng that should be addressed by Adobe so far as the limitations of creating 100% accurate Word files from PDFs within Acrobat 8. It has not and I think that many others may also buy Acrobat 8 on the guise that it can create Word files.

Aandi, you're missing the point - Acrobat 8 trumps its big feature as being able to save PDFs created from ID CS3-4 into Word files from Acrobat 8.

[Steve_Werner@adobeforums.com]

Aandi, you're missing the point - Acrobat 8 trumps its big feature as
being able to save PDFs created from ID CS3-4 into Word files from Acrobat
8.




I'm an Adobe consultant and trainer and have seen a lot of promotional material for Acrobat 8 and InDesign CS2, and I've never seen anyone claim that this was a feature of Acrobat 8! Where did you see that?

[Chris_Waldron@adobeforums.com]

G'day Steve,

May I politely suggest that you check the page that loads as soon as you open Acrobat 8 and quoting from the "Getting started with Acrobat 8 professional" window, then click the Export button it reads, "PDF to Word Quickly convert PDF files to Word DOC format while preserving your document layout and formatting."

It's there plain as day.

[Steve_Werner@adobeforums.com]

I think you're probably wanting "preserving your document layout" to mean InDesign layout, but would be more than a little marketing hype. There isn't enough of InDesign structure written into the PDF file to reconstruct it in Word. Plus, Word is a dumber program than InDesign in terms of layout. It's ain't gonna happen.

Instead, look at Help > Complete Acrobat Help. Then click Exporting PDFs > Exporting PDFs to other file formats > Export PDFs as text: "The text file you obtain when you export a PDF to RTF or Word format is not equivalent to the source fiile in the authoring application. Some coding information may be lost in the conversion."