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Editing a file

Have a PDF file I downloaded to a word file, it will not let me edit the file, keep going to picture mode or when I hit file the info part says protected file. How do I get to compatibility mode?
If the PDF was created (by scanning) as a graphic, it will not be edited unless you process it with OCR software; it is just a picture.
Microsoft MVP (Word) since 1999
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Many pdf files are simply images.

In other words, just as you can't take a picture of a car, get in it, and drive off... you can't get in a picture of a document and edit it.

OCR software converts images of documents into words (more or less). It is not perfect. A scanned document put through OCR will not create the same pdf as a Word Document saved as pdf. Even with the latter, when you convert it back to Word, chances are that you will have a number of formatting anomalies.

If you have Office OneNote, that has OCR capabilities. Adobe Acrobat (not Acrobat Reader) can do this also.

There are also a number of freeware OCR programs out there.

Volunteering to "pay forward" the help I've received in the Microsoft user community.


Charles Kenyon
Sun Prairie, Wisconsin
wordfaq[at]addbalance[dot]com

Legal site: https://addbalance.com

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Last updated October 5, 2021 Views 29 Applies to: