When you’re converting your PDF documents to Word, you may find that they don’t look quite right. The text might be out of order, or there might be formatting issues that affect the way it reads while converting PDF to Word. In this post, you will learn how to fix these issues so that your text looks just like it did in its original format.
Fix Special Characters
You can also use the formatting tools to fix special characters, such as em dashes or ellipses. For example, when you convert a long-form PDF document into Word, your text may end up with extra spaces before and after these kinds of punctuation marks. If you’re having trouble removing all of those extra spaces from a specific paragraph or table in your document, try applying bold formatting to them first (if necessary). Then copy the entire selection and paste it into another location where you want to insert the same punctuation marks but without any surrounding whitespace. This approach can help ensure that everything looks uniform throughout your converted Word file.
Create bulleted lists from the text (and vice-versa)
Bulleted lists are a great way to organize information quickly and efficiently, but they’re often not available in Word. Fortunately, you can convert your bulleted list into a numbered list just by using the right tool.
To create bulleted lists:
- Select the text you want to convert to a bulleted list and press Ctrl + Shift + B (Windows) or Command + Option + R (Mac). This will bring up the Bullets and Numbering dialog box.
- Choose whether you want to create an unordered or ordered list from this dialog box. Then select your desired number type and spacing. If necessary, click on one of the buttons at the bottom of this window for more formatting options like tabs or indentation—or click on one of them again for fewer options like no bullets at all.
Insert line breaks to keep text together
One way to keep text together is to use the “keep lines together” option in the “page setup” dialog. In Word, you can use this option when you convert a PDF document to make sure that your paragraphs stay connected.
Create headings from bold text
To convert text to a heading, select the text you want to convert and use the “Bold” tool. You can find this tool in the Home tab of your ribbon (the same tab with all of your menu options).
When you have selected the text and clicked on “Bold,” notice that it’s now highlighted in yellow. Now go back and click on “Heading 1” (or any other style) in your styles dropdown menu. If you don’t see this option, make sure it’s not hidden by clicking on View > Show/Hide > Formatting Marks at the top of your screen. Once you’ve done this, click anywhere outside of the document or press Enter to apply formatting changes.
Hopefully, these tips will help you fix formatting when converting PDF to Word. All you want for your content is for it to be easily accessible to the reader and in a way that makes sense. The key is knowing how to communicate effectively with your reader, so they understand what’s going on with the text!
