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CUNY Graduate Center
Information Technology
How do I Convert a PDF to Text using Adobe Acrobat Pro and Microsoft Word?
Effective: August 25, 2015
Last Updated: August 9, 2019
1. Open Adobe Acrobat Pro.
2. Click File >> Open (Fig. 1).
3. Find the desired PDF file, select it and click Open (you can also double-click on the file).
4. Click File >> Save as >> Select folder location where to save the file (click on Choose a Different
Folder if not listed, Fig.2) >> Save file type as Word Document (Fig. 3).
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5. Click Save (It will automatically save in DOCX format, which works with newer versions of
Microsoft Word). You can change it to .doc format using the Save as Type drop-down list for use
with earlier versions (Fig 4).
A status bar will appear, displaying the progress of the conversion (Fig. 5). Longer and more
complex documents may take a longer time to convert.
6. Review the document to make sure the text and images converted properly. You may need to
make minor corrections and/or adjustments.
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Other Options
Save Only a Section of the Document as Text
If you only wish to save a section of the document as text, you can select just that section and
right-click on it and select Export selection As (Fig. 6.)
Setting Options in the Save As dialog box
Before you save the file, if you click on the Settings button (Fig. 7), you can adjust the following options:
• Retain Flowing Text - Specifies that text flow must be retained. (Turned on, by default)
• Retain Page Layout - Specifies that page layout must be retained. (Turned off, by default)
• Include Comments - Exports comments to the output file. (Turned on, by default)
• Include Images - Exports images to the output file. (Turned on, by default)
• Run OCR if needed - Recognizes text if the PDF contains images that contain text.
(Turned on, by default)
• Set Language - Specifies the language setting for OCR. (Set to English, by default)
