Macworld reviews Solid PDF to Word for Mac

Great little article about our Mac software product (Solid PDF to Word for Mac) on Macworld:

How to convert PDFs to Word (and other formats)

Thanks Kirk McElhearn for the review!

Securing your PDF Content

PDF files can contain information with varying levels of sensitivity.

You may have posters, flyers, calendars, etc. that you wish everyone to open, print and use as needed. Or you may have documents that only a few key individuals should be able to open. You may also have files that you want people to be able to view, but not change using a PDF editor (invoices or banking statements come to mind, as you don't want people to remove a couple zeros from a bill you sent them).

PDF files can be secured easily, restricting the options of most users. Please note that no encryption technology [wikipedia.org] is perfect, and there is software available that people can use to illicitly crack PDF files. The steps below can make it much harder for people to open or alter your documents, but they will not make it impossible.

This guide assumes that you have Solid Converter PDF installed. If you have not purchased the program, you can download a free 15 day trial.

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PDF: Electronic Recycling

Did you know that PDF files are environmentally friendly? Not only do they save trees and time by being secure electronic documents rather than printed papers cluttering up the desk, but they can be recycled and reused!

With tools such as Solid Converter PDF and Solid PDF Tools, you can easily extract and reuse content from PDF files that you or others have created. This includes being able to extract tables to Microsoft Excel, convert the content to Microsoft Word or extract images to a separate file.

Don't need to recycle the whole PDF file? You can also extract single pages into a new PDF file or selectively extract images and/or text into Word or Excel.

Microsoft Office Document Imaging (MODI) can be used with 2010

Did you upgrade your Microsoft Office ® software from 2007 to 2010 and find that our OCR didn't work like it used to?

Fact: Solid Documents version 7 products use the Microsoft Office ® MODI API to recover text from scanned documents. When Microsoft Office 2010 was released we found that Microsoft had removed MODI from their Office suite. We went looking for why they did this and found it is because MODI produces .tif files which violate the TIFF standard and are usable only by the Microsoft Office Document Imaging (MODI) products.

Tip: Since our software creates PDF and not TIF, and only uses the character recognition in MODI, you can still use MODI from Office 2007 with your Office 2010!

Here's how:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/982760

How to use MODI in 2007 Office together with Office 2010
To use MODI in 2007 together with Office 2010, use one of the following methods:

• If you do not have 2007 Office system installed on a computer that has Office 2010 installed, you can install only MODI from the 2007 Office system setup. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Start the 2007 Office setup process.
2. Click Customize.
3. On the Installation Options tab, select Not Available for all items except for the items under Microsoft Office Document Imaging, and then click Install Now.
4. Click Close.

• If you perform a standard upgrade to Office 2010 from 2007 Office, MODI will be removed together with 2007 Office. Therefore, to keep MODI you have to keep the 2007 Office installation. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Start the Office 2010 setup process.
2. Click to select the I accept the terms of this agreement check box, and then click Continue.
3. Click Customize.
4. On the Upgrade tab, click the Keep all previous versions option, and then click Install Now.
5. Click Close.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Office_Document_Imaging

Alternatives to MODI for Office 2010 Users
If running Office 2010 which lacks MODI, there are these alternatives (among others):

• Follow Microsoft's suggestions which includes an installation of only the MODI software from Microsoft Office 2007. (This installation process might also work with earlier versions of Office): http://support.microsoft.com/kb/982760
• Install the Alterna-TIFF viewer: either ActiveX control (for IE) or browser plug-in (for other browsers): http://www.alternatiff.com/
• Install Black Ice's TIFF Viewer and plug-in: http://www.blackice.com/TIFFViewer.htm
• Install Cartesian Product's CPC viewer: either CPC View ax (ActiveX for IE) or CPC Lite pi (plug-in for other browsers): http://www.cartesianinc.com/Products/CPCLite/

Conversion and Export to Office Open XML Formats

Solid Converter® v7 and Solid PDF Tools Supports Office Open XML

With the support of Office Open XML your application choices for viewing and using your converted content just got richer! Not only is your output more flexible, you don’t need Microsoft ® Word to get it! The stated goal of the Office Open XML standard is to facilitate extensibility and interoperability by enabling implementations by multiple vendors and on multiple platforms.

The Office Open XML file formats were standardized between December 2006 and November 2008. Starting with Microsoft Office 2007, the Office Open XML file formats have become the default file format of Microsoft Office. The ability to read and write Office Open XML format however, is not limited to Microsoft Office; other office products are also able to read and write this format. Other office products that offer import support for the Office Open XML formats include TextEdit (included with Mac OS X), iWork, IBM Lotus Notes, WordPerfect, and Google Docs just to name a few.

An Office Open XML file is a ZIP-compatible OPC package containing XML documents and other resources. That is, one can see the contents of an OOXML file, for example by renaming it to a .zip file and opening it with any zip tool. The actual .xml files can then be viewed in a web browser or a plain text editor.

Sources for more information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standardization_of_Office_Open_XML
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_XML
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XML