Ask The Technology Therapist... Microsoft Word Adobe Acrobat 8

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Co-workers leave and computers crash, and you may have a PDF file saved in your email that you need to make a change to. Here is what you can do IF you have the full version of Adobe Acrobat 8. This means the reader and writer for creating PDF files.

1. Start by opening the PDF in Acrobat. Now try selecting some text by using the select tool – this can be found on the basic toolbar it is a black arrow with the word select next to it. Click this tool and try double-clicking on a word. If you can not highlight the word then you will need to convert it to a text-friendly document before you convert it to Microsoft Word. If you can select the word, skip the next step.
    
2. On the menu at the top choose Document – go down to – Recognize Text Using OCR – Click Start from the fly-out menu. A window will appear asking if you want to convert the current page or the whole document. I say the whole document. Click OK – then give it about 10-15 seconds per page to make the change.
    
3. Go to the menu on top and choose File - Save As. The save dialog box will appear from the drop-down box at the bottom where it says Format choose – Microsoft Word Document. Give your file a name and be sure to choose a location to save the file to – not just the one the computer defaulted to when you opened the save option. Then click save.
   
   
4. Now you can open your document in Microsoft Word for edits.
   

NOTE: The conversion may not be perfect you may have to clean up some of the formatting but at least you don’t have to re-type the whole document.
 
This is Jennifer Shaheen, The Technology Therapist, with your technology tip of the week.

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