Hello John

John Gregory wrote:
I have a 150 page pdf file of instructions I plan to use as a guide for
self-directed instruction on using a very busy program; Fidelity's Active
Trader Pro. I'd like to be able to convert the thing to a Word 2003 document
but can't find anything in Word's Help file that addresses it. It looks like
.pdf isn't an extension that's convertible.

A quick search on the net yields a number of programs that appear to do
this. I have no idea what's the best way - and safest - way to approach this
task (I'm always leery of downloading anything).

Can someone please give me some advice on how to make this conversion to
Word, what outside software I should be looking at if necessary, and any
other way of getting that pdf file into a more manageable form. Something
that would allow comments to be made right on the file as I read it would
also be of possible help.

There's a bunch of applications, from freeware up to the full version of
Adobe Acrobat, that can convert a given PDF to DOC or RTF (which you can
load in Word). Look for "PDF2DOC" or "PDF2RTF" with the search engine of
your choice.

The "quality" of the result varies a lot and depends on the simplicity
of the layout of the PDF (for instance, 2- or 3-row layout will usually
result in 3 textboxes in Word); and of the things you have in mind to do
with the document in Word. Be prepared _not_ to get a good Word document
in terms of usability (not "good" compared to something you build for
yourself), in terms of "structural information" (something discussed in
here when dealing with good template design).

Usually, if you need to update a PDF, you are already on the wrong
track: get hold of the original file *before* it was converted to PDF
and update it in its host application.

2cents
Robert
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