Smart Soft’s Free PDF to Word Converter is a free program that offers one-click PDF to Word (DOC) conversions. It performs conversions locally on your desktop (i.e. it is not a web service) and offers excellent fidelity to the original document.
I’ve written about PDF to Word/Doc conversions before (see the previously published comparative test); and while there are a handful of excellent conversion options available for free, the best are usually web services where you upload or email your PDF and receive the converted file back via email. The handful of local, desktop PDF to DOC apps have typically been more “lightweight” contenders offering far less sophisticated conversions than their web-based counterparts. Which is why Smart Soft’s Free PDF to Word Converter is a very welcome addition to the field; it is a very capable app that can hold it’s own against some of the best PDF-to-Word web services (although still outclassed by PDF to Word Free web service, which is still my favorite).
To test this app I performed 4 conversions (1) the US Form W-4 Tax forms; (2) a typical “read-me” type PDF containing text, images, and links, (3) a table with embedded images and other formatting, and (4) a PDF that is entirely generated from an image source. Here is a summary of the results.
- General layout: this just may be the best desktop PDF to Word conversion app in terms of faithfully recreating the “general layout” and “look and feel” of documents. The only desktop app to output a reasonable Word conversion of the (very complicated) W4 tax form.
- Image handling: is very good in general. MOST of the images in my conversions were imported and placed correctly, with the exception of two images that were inside of tables, which came out blank (although a third such images was inexplicably imported correctly).
- Handling of tables: recreates the “look and feel” of tables but does not create actual Word tables I will say that is more or less the standard treatments of tables in most PDF to Word converters. The only exceptions are web service PDF to Word Free which actually produces Word tables, and PDF to Excel Free (also a web service) which will convert tables to Excel sheets.
- Handling of text boxes: no continuous text; each line of text will be rendered in its own text box, making editing a rather complicated and labor intensive process.
- Handling of text formatting: very good in general; font style, shading, bulleted points, and numbered lists were well preserved.
- Hyperlinks: no working hyperlinks were generated in the output DOC files; this is also standard for most such converters.
- Handling of special characters: I frequently get asked about a PDF to DOC converter that can handle foreign characters (such as Russian) correctly. I did not test for this myself so please let me know how this service fares in this respect if you test it yourself.
- Fast performance: each page within your document takes mere seconds to convert.
The verdict: this program’s PROS include a sleek, well design user interface, and simple, fast, one-click conversions. It also is truly free and is devoid of nags and distractions. A few changes could have made this program much better, including the option to merge text boxes together to create large, editable blocks of text, and better treatment for images inside tables.
Nonetheless, for a desktop freeware PDF to DOC converter this one is probably the best out there. Although as mentioned above you could get better conversions using some of the free web services, there are times when you might prefer to use a desktop program instead (e.g. if you have too many files that may not be practical to upload to a web service en-mass, if the file(s) are too big to email or upload, or if you have privacy or security concerns about uploading or emailing your personal or business PDF documents, just to name a few examples). If you prefer to use a desktop based app rather than a web service Smart Soft’s Free PDF to Word Converter is probably the best freeware option.
Version Tested: 4.2.3.183 (I think).
Compatibility: Windows XP, Vista.
Go to the program page to download this program (approx 3.82 megs).
All Windows machines? The install program not works in Windows Millenium.
Looks like free software only does three pages. If you have a longer document, you must have the paid software.
You mean Adreamsoft PDF to Word? it’s really free but the quality is not good enough.
No bad, as a free PDF to Word converter!
It failed to convert protected files.
I find another one,AnyBizSoft PDF to Word Converter can deal with protected pdf files.
@ Ike: I guess its just XP and Vista; sorry.
@ Tucker: I just converted a 12-page PDF without any problems. I do NOT think that you need a paid version for documents larger than 3 pages. Did you use the link to the program page to get the program?
http://www.free-pdf-to-word-converter.com/
@ Nostra: the AnyBizSoft program is not going to be freeware for long; in an email exchange with them they confirmed that it will become payware in July and that no “last freeware version” is going to be available (you need a serial key from them to get the freeware version to work).
@ Wendy: I am downloading the Adreamsoft program; however, I am wondering if they are making the full version available for a limited time only. Will have to investigate more.
It works on Unicode characters (Chinese, Japanese and Korean) and also Russian. However, It does not work on Thai and Arabic.
I works on Win NT.
At eWeb Marketing Management we are always looking for good quality applications that we can pass on to our clients. The fact that this product is both feature rich and free makes it a perfect fit. Thanks for the great find
There is a great free version at http://www.smartpdfcreator.com/ but it inserts watermarks. It is a pretty good program though, quick and easy.
Tried this and got two results
1. imports PDF as full page images into .doc which means there is no text that can be used/manipulated
2. if I run Optical Character Recognition prior to conversion it does not recognize the character set and so no text
@Samer
RE: AnyBizSoft Update
from their website:
“Note: Free Keycode is available for this version permanently! But Free offer cannot be used for commercial usage! “
A wonderful software. I was searching for a free converter for some time and came across this. I converted a monster of a pdf, with 169 pages, just in couple of minutes! Amazing!! The document was comprised of images, tables and text and the copy was 95% comparable.