Software & Apps > Apps 47 47 people found this article helpful 8 Best Free PDF to Word Converters Free programs that convert PDF to Word (DOC or DOCX) By Stacy Fisher Stacy Fisher Technology Educator Emporia State University Stacy is a professional technology educator with over 25 years' experience. She has published hundreds of articles, co-authored a book, and has appeared on national and local TV. lifewire's editorial guidelines Updated on March 22, 2023 Tweet Share Email Tweet Share Email Apps Best Apps Payment Services A PDF to Word converter does just that: converts a PDF file, which can't be edited with most software, to a Microsoft Word format, like DOCX or DOC, which can be edited easily with many programs. Renaming a PDF to a Word format like DOCX won't work. You have to use a program or service that can perform the conversion before you can make changes to it. Once the changes are made, you can use a PDF converter tool to turn your Word document back into a PDF file...if you want to. There are several completely free programs and online services that can get the job done. Some programs let you edit a PDF without converting it. On the other hand, if all you really want to do is view the PDF file, you don't need to do any converting—see our list of free PDF readers for tools that open PDF files. 01 of 08 UniPDF What We Like Intuitive, easy-to-use interface. Accurately converts PDFs with lots of graphics. Multi-page documents convert successfully. What We Don't Like Can't convert PDF to DOCX. Loses complex text formatting in conversion. Limited to three conversions per day. Our Review of UniPDF UniPDF is a free PDF to Word converter, and easily the best one we've tried. It's fast and simple to use, but most importantly, it does an excellent job at keeping images and text where they belong once converted to DOC. Another benefit to this PDF converter is that it has a straightforward user interface and isn't bogged down with advertisements or confusing settings. It also converts PDF files to popular image formats like JPG, PNG, TIF, and others, as well as the text format RTF. Batch PDF to Word conversions and the ability to convert more than three PDFs in a single day are supported only if you pay for an upgraded version of the program. It works in Windows 11, 10, 8, 7, Vista, and XP. Download UniPDF 02 of 08 PDF Candy What We Like Import from your computer, Dropbox, or Google Drive. Unique features. Works quickly; starts the conversion immediately. What We Don't Like Unregistered users are limited to one task per every hour. You're given only two hours to download the file. PDF Candy has a few unique features that sets it apart from the other PDF to Word converters in this list. But, it's also more limited in a major way. After uploading a PDF, it will immediately begin converting to DOCX, and then will shortly after show a download link. Unlike most other conversion sites, this one also lets you share the DOCX file via a special link and import it to Dropbox or Google Drive. Unregistered users can only convert one PDF per hour. Visit PDF Candy 03 of 08 PDFMate's PDF to Word Converter What We Like Convert multiple PDFs at the same time. OCR to convert scanned PDFs to editable files. What We Don't Like Prompts you to buy full version before every conversion. Limits OCR conversion to three pages. PDFMate has a tool aptly called PDF to Word Converter that will save your PDF to DOCX, the newest MS Word document file format. The program is remarkably simple, with zero options other than to change the output folder. In our tests, it did a great job retaining nearly all the proper formatting and color. Batch converting is supported, so you can throw in multiple PDFs to convert all of them to DOCX. A huge drawback, however, is that this is the free version, so text found in the PDF will only be editable on the first three pages of the DOCX file that it creates. However, that may not be a concern depending on the document you happen to be converting. We tested this software in Windows 11, but it should work equally well in older versions as well, including Windows 10, 8, and 7. Download PDF to Word Converter 04 of 08 FreeFileConvert What We Like Online converter; doesn't require a software download. Conversion process is simple. Uploads files as large as 300 MB. Supports lots of other useful output formats. What We Don't Like Limited to five files at a time. Download links expire after 24 hours. Can't upload or download in bulk. Merges multi-page PDFs. FreeFileConvert is a free online PDF to Word converter that supports file uploads (up to five at a time) as large as 300 MB combined size. You can load a local PDF, one from a URL, or a PDF stored in your Google Drive or Dropbox account. In addition to DOCX, this PDF converter can save documents to EPUB, HTML, MOBI, TXT, and lots of other file formats, including images. In total, this service supports several thousand different conversion combinations. Something we noticed about this converter that the alternatives listed above don't do, is that it seems to not respect multi-page PDFs. In other words, if there are two pages before you convert to DOCX, you might end up with just one afterward because the blank spaces between the pages are trimmed during a conversion. Since this PDF to DOCX converter runs in a browser, it works with all operating systems. Visit FreeFileConvert.com 05 of 08 PDFtoDOCX.com What We Like Runs entirely online. Zero extra options to cause confusion. Bulk conversions, up to 20 PDFs. Bulk downloads, to ZIP. What We Don't Like Must download it within the hour, or it's deleted. PDF must exist on your computer, since that's the only upload source supported. PDFtoDOCX.com is one of several websites from the same company that helps you convert PDFs to a variety of formats. Clearly, this one will make a DOCX from a PDF, but it also supports the older DOC format in addition to several others, like text and images. It's simple to use: upload 1-20 PDFs, wait a few moments for the conversion to finish, and then download each document individually, or use the DOWNLOAD ALL button to get them in bulk. Much like the site detailed above, this PDF to DOCX converter can be used from any device since it runs online. Visit PDFtoDOCX.com 06 of 08 Adobe's Convert to PDF Tool What We Like Arguably the most trustworthy converter to retain formatting. No extra settings in the way; just a simple converter. Works online in your browser. Integrates with the free online version of Word. What We Don't Like Must sign in after the first conversion. As the makers of the PDF format, it seems appropriate to include Adobe in this list. Their tool, Convert to PDF, is a free web-based converter that works in seconds to save your PDF to DOCX. Just upload the file, wait a few seconds for the conversion to finish, and then select Download to save the DOCX. After the first conversion, you'll need to sign in to enable downloads (it's still free). Logging in also lets you convert PDFs that are in your Adobe account, choose RTF or DOC instead of DOCX, and edit the converted file directly from your browser. Visit Adobe.com 07 of 08 Zamzar What We Like No sign in necessary. Converts to the newer DOCX. Works online through a browser. 50 MB upload size limit. What We Don't Like Doesn't always work quickly. Limited to two conversions per every 24-hour-period. Our Review of Zamzar Upload a PDF or link to it by its URL to convert it to DOCX or some other document format. Zamzar also supports converting PDF to image, eBook, CAD, and web formats. Most PDFs aren't very large, so the 50 MB limit is most likely high enough for most people. You can wait around for the conversion to complete or check the email box to be notified over email when it's finished. More than one PDF can be uploaded at once, but the two-per-day conversion limit means that you're restricted to converting two PDFs simultaneously. Bulk downloading isn't allowed. Visit Zamzar 08 of 08 Filestar What We Like Clean design that's easy to use. Lots of other features. What We Don't Like Limited monthly conversions. No bulk conversions. Filestar is an amazing free file converter that supports tons of file conversions, including PDF to DOCX. What sets this program apart from the others in this list is its 'trigger folder' feature. After you set it up, any PDF you throw into the folder will automatically be converted to DOCX. It'll even happen in the background, so you won't be prompted to click anything, and you won't even see the program open. You can also convert a PDF to MS Word's format the traditional way, without using that folder. Filestar can also extract images from a PDF, merge PDFs, set a password, and more. Unfortunately, the free version is limited because there are paid options. Free users can convert no more than 10 files per month, and converting more than one file at once isn't supported. The program runs on Windows and macOS. Download Filestar Was this page helpful? Thanks for letting us know! Get the Latest Tech News Delivered Every Day Subscribe Tell us why! Other Not enough details Hard to understand Submit