PDF to Word: the honest guide to what actually converts

No PDF-to-Word converter produces pixel-perfect output. Here is what you can realistically expect — and the three checks to run before you send the .docx to anyone.

# PDF to Word: the honest guide to what actually converts Marketing pages will tell you their converter is "100% accurate." None of them are. PDF and DOCX are fundamentally different formats: PDF describes pixels on a page, DOCX describes a flowing document. Translating between them is interpretation, not transcription. ## What converts well - Single-column body text - Simple headings (if they're styled, not hand-drawn) - Inline links - Bullet and numbered lists ## What converts poorly - Multi-column layouts (newspapers, academic papers) - Tables with merged cells - Form fields - Anything that started life as a scan (use OCR first) ## What never converts cleanly - Hand-tuned typography (kerning, ligatures, drop caps) - Custom fonts the recipient doesn't have - Exact pixel positioning ## Three checks before you send 1. Open the .docx and scroll the whole thing — look for paragraph breaks in the middle of sentences. 2. Search for a phrase you remember from the PDF. If it returns zero results, OCR is the next step. 3. Toggle "Show paragraph marks" in Word to see where the converter guessed. CrispPDF's PDF to Word tool runs in your browser and is honest about the trade-offs: clean editable text, simplified layout. If you need a forensic copy, screenshot the PDF instead.