How to Convert a PDF to Word on iPhone

iOS has no PDF to Word converter, and copying text out of a PDF loses its layout. File Acture's Convert Files turns a PDF into an editable Word document (.docx) on the iPhone itself, keeping paragraphs, fonts, columns and pictures, and reads scanned pages with text recognition so they become editable too.

Updated October 31, 20264 min read

By the File Acture team

A contract you need to change a clause in, a CV that only exists as a PDF, a form someone sent you to fill in: sometimes the only fix is to get the document back into Word. On a phone that usually means an upload to a website. Here is what the iPhone can do by itself and how to convert the file without it leaving the device.

Can you convert a PDF to Word on iPhone without an app?

Not as a real document. You can select text in a PDF, or on a scanned page with Live Text, copy it and paste it into a document. That keeps the words, but the columns, spacing, fonts, tables and pictures are gone, and on a long document you rebuild the layout by hand.

The Files app opens a PDF to read and mark up, not to edit its text as a document.

How to convert a PDF to Word with File Acture

Open Convert Files and tap Add from Files to pick the PDF, or share it to File Acture from Mail or Files. The Detected format line shows PDF Document.

Under Target format, choose Word Document (.docx) and tap Convert. File Acture reads each page and writes a new .docx file in On My iPhone › File Acture › File, ready to open in Word, Pages or Google Docs, or to share.

Paragraphs: lines that belong together are joined into real paragraphs, not one line per row.
Text style: font family, size, bold, italic and color are kept.
Columns and spacing: indents, alignment and line spacing are carried over; columns get tab stops.
Pictures: images stay where they were on the page.
Page size: the Word document uses the page size of the original PDF.

What about scanned PDFs?

A scan has no text layer, only a picture of the page. On those pages File Acture uses the iPhone's built-in text recognition automatically, so the scan still becomes editable text in Word. Photos, stamps and handwriting stay as pictures in the document.

If you scan the paper yourself, scan it to PDF first, then convert the PDF.

Excel, PowerPoint and Office to PDF

Convert Files works in both directions.

PDF to Excel: choose Excel Spreadsheet (.xlsx); each page becomes a worksheet, with numbers stored as numbers.
PDF to PowerPoint: choose PowerPoint Presentation (.pptx); each page becomes a slide with editable text.
Office to PDF: add a Word, Excel or PowerPoint file and it becomes a PDF, without Microsoft Office.

Is it safe to convert a PDF to Word online?

Online converters receive the whole document. For a contract, a payslip or a medical letter, that is a copy on someone else's server. File Acture converts on the iPhone; the free version converts up to 5 files per run, 5 runs a day, and Pro removes the limits. If you only need to change a few words and keep it a PDF, edit it directly with Edit & Sign PDF.