How to convert a PDF to .docx
- Open the PDF editor and open your file, or drop it onto the window.
- Open PDF Tools and choose "Convert to Word (.docx)".
- Save the resulting .docx and open it in Docs, Word or another word processor.
What the conversion actually produces
For each page, the converter reads the PDF's real text where the page already has one, or runs OCR where it doesn't, and writes that text into the .docx as ordinary paragraphs under a heading for the page. That means you get real, editable words and sentences, not a picture of the page pasted into a document. It does not mean the new document looks like the PDF: columns, tables, headers, footers and exact positioning from the original layout are not rebuilt, so a densely formatted PDF comes out as plain running text in reading order. Treat the result as a starting draft to reformat, not a copy.
Scanned PDFs and OCR
A scanned PDF has no text of its own, so the converter runs the same on-device OCR engine (Tesseract) the PDF editor uses elsewhere, which recognises English. On the free plan, OCR only covers the first page of the file; converting every page of a multi-page scan needs Pro. Handwriting, faint photocopies and unusual fonts produce more mistakes, so proofread the result.
Why convert in the browser
Contracts, statements and forms are exactly the documents people don't want to hand to a random "PDF to Word" website. This conversion reads and rebuilds the file inside the browser tab you already have open; nothing is uploaded. See the security page for what that does and doesn't cover.
Going the other way
To turn a document back into a PDF, see converting .docx to PDF, or to combine several images into a PDF, see converting images to PDF.
Common questions
Does the converted document keep the original layout, columns or tables?
No. The converter rebuilds each page's text as plain paragraphs under a page heading. Columns, tables, text boxes and precise positioning from the original PDF are not reconstructed. It's built for getting the words into an editable file, not for reproducing the original design.
Does it work on a scanned PDF?
Yes, using the same OCR as the PDF editor, which recognises English text. On the free plan, OCR runs on the first page only, so a scanned PDF longer than one page needs Pro to convert every page. Pages that already contain real text are read directly, without OCR.
Is my PDF uploaded to convert it?
No. The PDF is read, its text extracted (or recognised by OCR) and rebuilt into a .docx file entirely in your browser tab.
More questions? See the full FAQ or contact us.