PDF to Word Document problem

Question

First time user on Acrobat 9 Pro and am trying to convert a PDF document (I'm not the author) to a Word document.
Once a word document I want to be able to edit or e-mail to a 3rd party to edit.
Each time I have attempted "save as" or export the following message appears and the document is saved as a picture (thus cannot be edited in word).
"Acrobat was able to make this document accessible but found the following oddities:
Some difficult pages were encountered requiring all graphics on those pages to be labeled as figures [1]."
Does this mean there is no way that the document can be converted to word and then edited or am I doing something wrong?
If anyone can advise I would be grateful.  Thanks

Answer 1

It sounds like you might just want to consider putting the scan or image save (if possible) in the header of a WORD document set at exact zero spacing and at the top of the page and with the image below the line. This should show the image on the rest of the page and you could then just type in WORD to your heart's content. In any case, the original form will likely have to be used in the final since most folks would not accept a made up form, particularly if they have secured it. The WORD trick is one I used to use to fill out a monthly form and have a record of what I had completed. I haven't done it for many years, but is a useful trick.
Just to demonstrate the point, I have put the first page of the IRS f1040 into a WORD file. The security on the form allowed for it to be saved as a TIFF and I just put the TIFF into the header of a DOC file. I changed the TIFF to be behind the text, and aligned at 0,0 of the margin (actually you might want to set your default margins first and then go from there, since a change of the margins will move the graphic). I then set the paragraph spacing in the header to exactly 1pt (you might be able to adjust this up, but might have to compensate for the TIFF alignment). You then go back to the document and type to your heart's content. The text should show on top of the graphic. You can do this with any graphic and it is a trick that few folks are aware of except for power users. I ran into it many years ago with a different word processor and found I had to set the paragraph to exact to make it work. With the WORD feature of having the graphic behind the text this may not be necessary.
I have posted it (at least for a few days) at http://wadavis.ece.vt.edu/f1040Sample.doc. I think this may meet your need. In the end, you likely will need to come back to the original for and fill in the full data for the folks that made the form. If you can not save as a graphic, then you will have to scan. If it is in black&white, you might try either B&W or grayscale to save space. In my example I did not bother with the conversion to B&W and the form page is 985kB. In B&W it is 158kB. Grayscale is about 2 times larger. That would have made my sample file a lot nicer to work with. In any case, this idea takes a bit of time, but can be effective. If you have a multi-page form, then you would add a section break to a new page and repeat the process using a different header (a bit confusing in WORD, but is easy to do once you figure out the correct choice). Good luck.