The market is flooded with numerous PDF to Word converters, yet their effectiveness can vary greatly. It's not uncommon to try multiple tools without finding the one that meets your needs.
In this article, we will compare popular free PDF to Word converters, focusing on their ease of use, cost-free features, and functionalities that enhance conversion quality, to help you discover the best converter available.
Basic Comparison of Best Free PDF to Word Converters
This section compares popular PDF to Word converters, covering aspects like free availability, duration, with OCR or not, etc. Adobe, ComPDFKit, and Xodo provides the best performance. ComPDFKit would be your best choice because it’s totally free without limitation. Adobe and Xodo allows you to conversion 1 PDF file for free, and other tools also with feature or time limitations.
Performance Comparison of PDF to Word Converters
1. ComPDFKit
Compare the files before and after conversion. The Word document resulting from the conversion demonstrates a high level of fidelity in terms of layout and text style, particularly regarding the position between images and text, text size, and PDF background details.
It’s noticeable that if the font in the converted text may differ from the original due to your system not having the required fonts. Thus, a similar font is used for display, which is a normal occurrence.
For those using the ComPDFKit online free PDF to Word Converter, be sure to select the functionality to apply based on your original PDF file’s characteristics (as shown below). This choice directly impacts the conversion results.
Example of Parameters:
- Layout Setting:
- Grid Layout: Choose this option when you want maintain the converted Word file’s layout as the original document.
- Flow Layout: Select this when you want to add substantial content to the converted Word file and desire the content to automatically flow downward.
- Include Images: Check when the PDF contains images.
- Include Annotations: Select this if you want to convert the PDFs with the annotations keeping in the converted Word document.
- Allow OCR: Needed for text recognition in scanned documents or images.
- Include PDF Background (OCR): Check if your PDF includes a background.
- With AI Table Recognition: For PDFs containing tables.
- Password: Enter a password if your original file requires one to open, otherwise the conversion will fail.
2. ILovePDF
The free version lacks OCR capability, so if your PDF contains text within images, the converted Word document will have text embedded within a picture. The following original file doesn't require the OCR feature. Comparing I Love PDF's converted Word file (on the right) to the original PDF (on the left), some PDF backgrounds are missing, and there are alignment issues with text and images, along with discrepancies in text style, size, color, and positioning.
3. Adobe
The conversion quality is impressive, with a high degree of fidelity to the original document's structure, layout, style, and background. However, note that the free version only allows for a single conversion; further use requires payment, which is quite costly. Additionally, Adobe's site occasionally experiences downtime.
4. Xodo
The results are quite similar to Adobe's, utilizing Apryse technology, but at a slightly lower cost.
5. Foxit
The document conversion results are fairly good, though the analysis of the document structure may have some inaccuracies.
6. Nitro
The layout of the converted Word document does not perform well in terms of formatting, and there may also be discrepancies in word recognition.
Wrap up
From the comparison above, it's clear that ComPDFKit, as a technical provider of PDF format conversion SDKs/APIs, offers high-quality document conversion technology across the board. It allows for seamless integration into your own apps, systems, or document workflows. Their free online conversion demo not only showcases impressive functionality for clients but also provides a high-quality and completely free tool to users in need of converting PDFs to Word.
Use ComPDFKit online free PDF to Word converter now and get rid of time, feature, watermark, rsignup needing limitations. If you need PDF technology integration into your apps, don't hesitate to integrate or use our Conversion SDK/API for outstanding conversion results!