How to Convert a PDF to Word on Windows for Free

Yes. Word, which comes with Microsoft 365 or Office rather than with Windows, opens a PDF by converting it into an editable document. Microsoft calls this PDF Reflow, and it runs on your PC, so if you already have Word it's the first thing worth trying.

The catch is that Word rebuilds the page instead of copying it. The result works best for PDFs that are mostly running text; with tables, columns, footnotes or unusual fonts the layout often shifts, and you may spend a while putting it back.

• Open the PDF: in Word, choose File › Open and pick the PDF.
• Confirm the conversion: Word warns that it will convert the PDF into an editable document; click OK.
• Save as .docx: check the result, then save it as a Word document. The PDF itself stays unchanged.

No. Microsoft Edge, the default PDF reader on Windows 11, can view, annotate and print PDFs, but it can't save one as a Word document. Copying the text out of Edge and pasting it into a document gives you the words and loses most of the formatting.

The other free route is a website or Google Docs, and both work on a copy of your file on someone else's server. For contracts, payslips or ID documents that's a real trade-off; see whether online PDF tools are safe before you upload one.

File Acture's Convert Files is one tool that works in both directions. Drop a PDF on it and you choose Word, Excel or PowerPoint as the target; drop a Word, Excel or PowerPoint file and it turns it into a PDF. The Detected format line shows what the tool read from the file itself, whatever its name says.

For a Word document, pick Word Document (.docx) under Target format and click Convert. The new file keeps the original name with the new extension, so report.pdf becomes report.docx, and it is saved in the folder you choose; the PDF is never changed.

Everything happens on your PC, and you can drop several PDFs at once. If a conversion is cancelled or fails, no half-written file is left behind. A password-protected PDF, including one with AES-256 encryption, can be converted once you enter its password.

The Windows version aims for text you can edit rather than a pixel copy of the page. Knowing what it keeps helps you pick the right tool for each document.

• Text and pages: every line of text comes across with its font family, size and bold, and each PDF page starts after a page break, so page 3 of the PDF is still page 3 of the document.
• Pictures: photos and drawings in the PDF aren't carried over, only the text and its formatting. If you need them too, save them separately with PDF to Images.
• Scanned PDFs: a scan is a picture and has no text to convert. Run OCR PDF on it first; Convert Files on Windows doesn't recognize text by itself.
• Tables: when what you need is the numbers in a table, convert the PDF to Excel instead, where each row and column lands in cells.

File Acture converts without uploading anything. To count free runs it sends only the tool's name, the app version and anonymous identifiers, never file names or contents. It runs on Windows 10 (version 1809 or later) and Windows 11, 64-bit.

The free version includes 3 runs on each PC with up to 5 files per run; Pro is a one-time purchase for one device (see pricing). If you only need to fix a word or two, you may not need Word at all: edit the PDF text directly.