How to Change a Word Document to PDF: The Ultimate Guide

I. Word and PDF

word

Microsoft Word is a word processing software developed by Microsoft Corporation in 1983, and Word documents are the proprietary format of the software. Word documents usually have a “.doc” or “.docx” extension. Microsoft Word provides many easy-to-use document creation tools, which can layout graphics, statistics, create tables, etc. Word documents also provide advanced functions such as spell check, grammar check, font format, HTML support, advanced page layout, etc., which can meet most of the daily office needs of ordinary people.

PDF

PDF (short for Portable Document Format, meaning “Portable Document Format”) is a file format developed by Adobe Systems for file exchange in a manner independent of applications, operating systems, and hardware. To create a PDF file, you can create it from within Adobe Acrobat, Microsoft Word, or similar software. PDF files are one of the most popular file formats for sharing digital files on the Internet. Publications or forms published online are usually saved in PDF format. PDF documents can be opened directly on Windows, macOS, Linux and other operating systems, with strong compatibility. This format file can contain electronic information such as hypertext links, sounds and dynamic images, and has a high degree of integration, security and reliability.

Why do you need to convert Word to PDF?

As for why you want to convert Word to PDF, one reason is that you can easily typeset and fix the layout. Most of the time, PDF files are used in professional books and papers. This is mainly because it is very convenient when typesetting. The effect of typesetting in Word or other file formats is far less than that of PDF. On the other hand, converting Word to PDF can ensure that the file is not modified at will. Word documents are mainly used to edit documents. Basically, we will choose Word documents when we need to edit and modify documents. Unlike PDF files, its typesetting format is fixed and not easy to modify, which protects the content of the file to a certain extent. In addition, the security of PDF files is relatively high. It is a document that can be encrypted. Generally, academic papers or important documents are in PDF file format.

II. Software conversion: convert/save Word files to PDF

There are many ways to convert Word files to PDF format. The following will mainly introduce the conversion operations of Microsoft Word, LibreOffice, and OpenOffice.

1. Save Word document as PDF in Microsoft Word

As a word processing program, Microsoft Word, like other word processing programs, can help users create various types of documents, such as emails, resumes, business contracts, reports, web pages, etc. Compared with traditional text editors, it can provide more complete and comprehensive text editing functions. For example, you can change the font style, size and color, change text alignment and insert pictures in Word documents. It is also very simple to create a PDF document in Word, just save it as when you finish editing the document. Whether it’s a Windows or Mac computer, you can use Microsoft Word to make the conversion. The easiest way to convert Word to PDF is through Microsoft Word.

① After you finish editing the document in Microsoft Word software, please click File>Save As.

② In the opened Save As window, please select the save type PDF (*.pdf) and click Save, which completes the conversion from Word to PDF.

2. Convert Word to PDF in LibreOffice Writer

LibreOffice is an open source and free all-round office software, including Writer, Calc, Impress, Draw, Base, and Math components, which can be used to process text documents, spreadsheets, presentations, drawings, and formula editing. LibreOffice Writer is a word processing software, similar to Microsoft Word, through which you can edit text, insert pictures, create tables, etc. LibreOffice Writer software is relatively popular abroad, and it can run on operating platforms such as Windows, macOS, GNU or Linux. Although it can support document formats such as Word (*.doc/*.docx), sometimes it is not 100% compatible.

① Open the Word document in LibreOffice Writer software, then click the File option in the top menu bar, and select Output as PDF in the pop-up menu. Then you can customize the converted PDF files, such as compression quality, encrypted files, etc.

② After the settings are complete, click Export, select the save location of the PDF file and click Save.

3. Convert Word to PDF in OpenOffice Writer

OpenOffice.org is a cross-platform office software suite, the main modules are Writer (text document), Calc (spreadsheet), mpress (presentation), Math (formula calculation), Draw (drawing) and Base (database). Users can use OpenOffice.org for word processing, presentations, statistics, drawing, etc. OpenOffice Writer (also known as OpenOffice.org Writer) is a free text editing software developed by OpenOffice.org, which can directly open Word documents and store and output them in PDF file format. The software runs on Windows, Linux, MacOS X (X11), and Solaris operating systems, and you can download it for free.

① Open the Word document in the OpenOffice Writer software, then click the file option in the top menu bar, and select Export as PDF in the pop-up menu.

② You can set the relevant options of the PDF file, and click Export after completion. Finally, select the location to save the PDF and enter a file name, and click Save.

III. Online Conversion: Convert Word to PDF

In addition to converting with software, you can also convert with some online conversion tools, and you can convert Word documents to PDF without downloading software.

1. Use PDFCandy to convert Word online

PDFCandy is a free online conversion tool, you can quickly convert Word documents to PDF format without registration or subscription. The operation interface of PDFCandy online conversion tool is simple, and the conversion steps are also very simple. Plus, it supports uploading Word documents from local folders, Google Drive or Dropbox. The advantage of using an online conversion tool is that it is not affected by the operating system, whether it is Windows, Mac or Linux, you can convert directly on the browser. It should be noted that if the file size is too large, the waiting time for conversion will be longer.

Online conversion tool: https://pdfcandy.com/cn/word-to-pdf.html

① Click (Add File) to upload the Word document to be converted.

② Wait for the conversion to complete, and click (download file).

2. Use PDF2Go to convert Word online

Use the PDF2Go online conversion tool to quickly convert Word to PDF format, and supports batch conversion. The conversion tool also provides an OCR text recognition function that converts scanned pages into editable text. In addition, if you also need to edit PDF documents, this converter also provides some simple editing tools. PDF2Go online conversion tool is free, you can use it with confidence.

Online conversion link: https://www.pdf2go.com/zh/word-to-pdf

① If you only need to convert the file directly, please click (Select File) to upload the Microsoft Word document you want to convert. After uploading, click (Convert) to start the conversion, and finally click (Download).

② If the Word document you want to convert is a scanned copy or contains images, you can choose (Convert with OCR) to extract text from the scanned page, convert the image content into text content, and you need to select (the source language of the file) , and finally click (Start).

3. Zamzar

The operation of Zamzar online conversion tool is relatively simple, and you can easily convert Word to PDF files. In addition to converting to PDF files, it can also be converted to EPUB, DOC, JPG, JPEG, CR2, CRW, HTML, ODP, TXT, PDF, CSV, DWG, GIF, etc. EPUB, DOC, JPG, JPEG, CR2, CRW, HTML, ODP, TXT, PDF, CSV, DWG, GIF, etc. The Zamzar conversion tool supports batch conversion. After the conversion is completed, you can also choose to send it to the email you entered, but it may take a long time to receive the converted file.

Online conversion link: https://www.zamzar.com/convert/docx-to-pdf/

① After opening the link in the browser, click (Add Flies) to upload the Word document to be converted.

② Then select convert to (pdf), click (Convert Now) to start converting the file. Finally click (Download) to download the PDF file to your computer.

IV. How to convert PDF to Word and edit PDF

If you still need to modify the text content and layout, it will be more convenient to convert the PDF back to a Word document and then modify it. But if you don’t need to modify the text content, just simply edit the content of the PDF page, then useRenee PDF Aide Software can also help you do it.

1. How to convert PDF to Word

In addition to converting Word to PDF, sometimes it is also necessary to convert PDF files to Word documents for easy editing or modification of the content. The best way to convert PDF to Word is to use Renee PDF Aide , which has the best conversion effect compared to other conversion software. Renee PDF Aide is a full-featured PDF conversion and editing software with a simple software interface and very simple conversion operations. When converting PDF format to Word, the conversion efficiency can be as high as 80 pages per minute. The software also supports converting to other file formats, including Excel, PowerPoint, ePub, Text, HTML, Image formats. The software’s built-in OCR text recognition function can help you quickly identify scanned PDF files or image content and convert them into editable document formats. In addition to format conversion, you can also use Renee PDF Aide to split,merge , Optimize, Repair, Encrypt, Decrypt PDF files.

Supported operating systems: Windows 10/8.1/8/7/Vista/XP/2000 (32-bit and 64-bit versions).

① After installing Renee PDF Aide, open it. Select (Convert PDF).

② Click (Word) in the top menu bar, and then select the save location of the target document.

③ Click the (Add File) button to add the PDF file to be converted. After the file is successfully added, the information of the file to be converted will be displayed in the conversion list, click (select page) to set the page for file conversion.

④ Finally, click the (Convert) button to convert. When the prompt conversion is over, the software will display the total number of converted files and the number of successfully converted files. At this time, the PDF has been successfully converted into a Word document.

2. How to edit PDF

You can complete some PDF editing operations without converting to Word. Sometimes, when you need to perform some editing operations such as optimization, splitting or merging on PDF, you can use Renee PDF Aide to solve it. This software is a collection of various editing functions, among which the “PDF Toolset” module can already meet most of your editing needs.

After opening Renee PDF Aide, please click to enter the “PDF Toolset” column. In the function menu bar at the top, you can select any function to perform personalized editing operations on PDF files. Such as repair, optimization, split, merge, rotate, encrypt/decrypt, watermark, image to PDF. In addition, you can also edit multiple PDF files at the same time, batch operations, convenient and fast. The operation interface is simple, and various editing functions are clear at a glance, reducing the learning curve. After editing, click Convert to export it to the specified folder.