Quick editing tips - Text from PDF into Word

Adobe Reader and Microsoft Word have different methods for displaying text within their files. Font sizes have much finer granularity in Acrobat then in Word for example. Solid Converter PDF and Solid PDF Tools have to make choices when converting PDF text into Word text so that the document formatting and layout are maintained. This might mean adjusting the character spacing to help make it “fit” in Word.

If you are seeing unequal spacing in your document you can quickly do the following:

1. Select all text
2. Choose Format Font Character Spacing and select 100%.

New 7.0 of Solid Framework Released

Newest version enhances conversion and reconstruction features; Gives developers power to build applications for the creation, modification and conversion of PDF files within 64-bit native environment.

See full press release here.

Best Practices for Converting PDF Files

Question: I have content I need to repurpose that is held captive in a PDF file. What do I do?
Answer: Solid Converter® PDF and Solid PDF Tools offer different options for PDF to Word conversion because one size does not fit all. There are different options that can be used to convert. Here’s how to get the best conversion for what you need.

Conversion options available in Solid PDF Tools and Solid Converter PDF include:

1. Flowing - recovers page layout, columns, formatting, graphics and preserve text flow
2. Exact - recovers exact page presentation using text boxes in Microsoft Word
3. Continuous - detects layout and columns but only recovers formatting, graphics and text.

When should you use each? We get asked this question a lot and we usually followup with a question:

"What are you intending to do with the Word document (recovered PDF content) once you have converted it? Read on to see how to choose the best conversion method for your repurposing task at hand.

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What is Non-Standard Encoding?

Let's start by looking at what standard encoding is and how it works.

Each English alphabetical and numerical character A, B, C or 1, 2, 3 and so on has a corresponding ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) Decimal or Hexadecimal code associated with it. Microsoft Word, Notepad and plain text editors use ASCII to display the desired characters.

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The Initial Reviews are In...Solid PDF to Word for Mac is

We’re so excited about the new release of Solid PDF to Word for Mac that we are giving the first 500 people a 25% discount to download and purchase Solid PDF to Word for Mac. Thanks for the overwhelming response! Note, as of May 3rd, this special offer has ended.

But don’t take our word for it. Listen to what others have to say…. and download your copy today!

Stephen Withers from ITWire: Solid PDF to Word - a better PDF converter?
Michael Dougherty from Bright Hub: Solid PDF to Word Review
David Chartier from Macworld: Solid PDF to Word converter debuts for Mac
Arafat Hossian Piyada from Worthy Tips: Solid PDF to Word converter (Mac)

Customer feedback:
"I read about this product at an online Mac news site. After downloading and trying the demo, I was amazed at the accuracy and speed of conversion. It took me just a moment to go back to your site and buy a license. The 25% early special was icing on the cake. It will no doubt be an application I use often and your software will become an important part of my workflow in graphic design. Great work!"

Ken Gee

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"Wow! I took a PowerPoint file made on a Windows PC converted it to PowerPoint on the Mac then converted it to a PDF for my iPad and then took that PDF and converted it to a Word file for my Mac. Flawless conversion!!! This really helps with getting files on your iPad that you can edit. Bravo!"

Michael M. Cohen
Diablo Valley Macintosh User Group

Solid PDF to Word for Mac vs. Apple Automator App (Part 2)

Should PDF converters respect PDF security? Solid Documents says yes. Adobe PDF Reference states that anyone is free to use the PDF standard as long as they abide by PDF security settings. Solid PDF to Word for Mac respects all PDF security settings as do all Solid Documents products.

We tried two simple tests with the Apple Automator application (PDFtoRTF). First we tried to push a user password protected file through our Automator PDF app. The tool looked like it created a RTF file from the PDF but then we could not open the file with EditText or Pages (error message: The document x could not be opened.)

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Solid PDF to Word for Mac vs. Apple Automator App

Does Apple OS X provide a method for converting PDF files into other formats? Sort of. You can write an automator application to convert PDF files into RTF documents but you can only extract the text. No formatting is preserved, no tables and no images. If you just need text then the automator application can deliver text. Some of the time.

In our experience the automator application can only handle very simple PDF files. It closes with unexpected errors when offered PDF files with non-standard encoding (very common issue with PDF files), it creates 0 byte files for other PDFs that it cannot convert and generally didnʼt perform robustly to provide useful results.

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