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Two of the most common document formats in use these days are Microsoft Word documents and Adobe PDF (Portable Document Format) files with Google Docs files near the top as well. In general, it’s very easy to convert a Word document to a PDF document simply by using the print to PDF feature that is built into the Windows operating system. But getting the information from a PDF into a Word document is not as easy. Sure you can copy and paste between your PDF and Word documents but that might come out the way you want it to.
In this article, we will be showing you 3 ways to insert a PDF file into a Microsoft Word document. This way, you can keep the formatting of your PDF file intact and if your PDF file has man pages, you can still insert it without having to worry about your Word document getting too large as well.
The method you use to insert a PDF file into a Microsoft Word document will vary depending on your goals so check out each one of these 3 methods and choose the one that works the best for you.
Method 1 – Inserting a Single or Multiple Page PDF as an Image
If your PDF file is only one page, you may find it easiest to insert that page into your document as an image so it can be viewed but not edited. To do this, place your cursor within your Word document in the location where you want the PDF file to be placed.
Then go to the Insert tab and then to the Text group. Then click on the Object drop down and choose Object.
On the next screen, choose Adobe Acrobat Document and click the OK button.
You will then need to browse to the location of the PDF file that you want to insert into your Microsoft Word document and click the Open button.
Word will then open the PDF file in your default PDF viewer, but you can simply close this out because you will not need to do anything with it there.
You will now see that Word has inserted the PDF document as an image right on the page itself. You cannot edit any of the text or images within this PDF object, but you can resize it or move it to a different location within your document. If you were to double click the image, it would open the PDF file in your default PDF viewer application.
You can also use this method for a multi-page PDF document which uses the same process. The main difference is that it will only show the first page of the PDF document as an image within your Word document. So, if your readers do not know that there is more than one page, they may think that the information they are seeing is the entire document.
If you do use this method with a multi-page PDF document, you can still double click the image within Word and open the PDF file with your default PDF viewer and then scroll down to see the additional pages within that PDF file.
Method 2 – Inserting a Single or Multiple Page PDF Icon
If you have a multi-page PDF file, you may want to use this final method to ensure that your readers will see the additional pages. This will also work with single page PDF files as well.
You will once again choose the Adobe Acrobat Document choice but this time you will need to check the box that says Display as icon. It will use an Adobe Acrobat icon by default, but you can change it to something else if you click the Change icon button. To change the icon, you will need to have another icon file (.ico) on your computer to replace the default icon with.
Once you click the OK button, you will see the Adobe Acrobat icon placed in your document where you had your cursor. Now when someone double clicks this icon, it will open the PDF file in their default PDF reader software so they can view the entire thing. You can also move the location of this icon within your text if you need to place it elsewhere within your document.
If you want to make the icon move freely, you can right click on it and choose Format AutoShape/Picture. Then you can change it to in front of text to make it where you can drag the icon around on the page and place it on top of text or images.
Method 3 – Inserting Your PDF as Text
The last method involves converting the text and images from your PDF file and then placing it into your Microsoft Word document. The process is similar except this time you will choose Text from File rather than Object from the dropdown selection.
You will then see a message saying Word will convert your PDF to an editable Word document and it might take a while. How long this takes will depend on the size and number of pages in your PDF file but shouldn’t take more than a minute or so.
When the process is complete, you will then see the text and images from y our PDF file inserted into your Word document and then you can edit the text the same as any other text that you typed yourself.
When using this method to insert a PDF into a Word document, you may find that some words do not get converted properly so you may need to check the spelling.
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