I want to convert a PDF to a DOC and back using Libre Office Writer. I think it involves using IMPORT and EXPORT? (I do not want to be directed to the DRAW function.) Can someone provide the clear step by step commands. Thanks

No. It can't be done. PDF is a terminal stage data format. Unless special precautions were made in advance prior to the data being formatted as PDF there is no return. You may edit it as a Drawing but that is the best you are likely to get. Please find the original document that was used to create the PDF in the first place and use that as the basis for your task and make a new PDF from that after you have made edits.

Someone showed me how to do it months ago. I believe it used a Import/Export. I used it several times back then. I have lost the instructions. Thought someone could recreate them for me. No luck researching Libre Office or Linux.

It was probably shown with a PDF that had embedded the full OpenDocument Format (ODF) data within it. Those can be re-edited as ODF and then used to create anothe PDF with embedded ODF data. But you have to make a conscious decision prior to creating the PDF to embed the ODF data. Otherwise, if you forget to embed the ODF data, the new file becomes a terminal-stage format suitable only for printing or erasing.

Again, if you want to edit anything, you'll need to find the original and work with that. I hope it has not been lost.

If the source PDF is composed of separable pieces you can disaggregate them with pdftohtml, edit, then view with a browser and print to PDF. If it's just a picture (possible), then you can only treat it as a picture. Merely running pdftohtml on it will tell you something.

A friend paid a professional to make her resume spiffy as a Word doc, and extra to export it as a PDF. Then she wanted me to show her how to edit the PDF. I saw that it was just a picture of the Word doc saved as a PDF, a ripoff. I couldn't get her to understand that. I failed. I didn't get a date.

1 members found this post helpful.

What people forget is that TRUE PDF is just a collective format like ZIP.
As such it can contain many parts or it may just be a scanned picture saved as a PDF - yes I am aware that decent scanner software will separate the text and the pictures-
If it was the former, a PDF editor will allow you to split the parts and change them.
Most often though scanned documents are saved just as a picture which is not really what PDF is for.

1 members found this post helpful.

A PDF is just a rolled up and compressed piece of postscript.
Unfortunately, some of the text content is sometimes just a pictorial image of each actual page.

A postscript file can be edited with a text editor or displayed in the same way as a PDF file.
Using the imagemagick package, try running

Postscript is even more codified/encapsulated than PDF and is likely targetted at specific printers so that is not going to help any.

Postscript isn't just for printers.

I did not say it was.
I said it is likely targetted at printers. That was what it was designed for, whereas PDF was specifically designed to be portable - the clue is in the name.

Hi fred1669,

If the pdf in question does not contain embedded parts (i.e. text) as others have mentioned, you may still be able to convert it to text using an OCR (optical character recognition) utility. Results are variable and success depends greatly on how much special formatting is used in the original document. In some cases, it may be easier and quicker to retype ... If however your document is very long, an OCR tool *may* save you some time.

Best,

That is what I always did with the pictures of documents (mostly CVS) that were sent to me.