PDF to Word uses AI Deep Read for every page, so both scanned and digital PDFs are rebuilt from page images instead of passed through our office engine or pdf2docx.
From real runs
| Element | Result | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| Selectable body text | Changed | Text is recognized and rewritten into Word paragraphs; line breaks from the PDF are removed when they look like layout artifacts. |
| Scanned page text | Changed | Vision OCR creates editable text, but faint stamps, skewed photocopies, and handwriting can need manual correction. |
| Two-column layouts | Changed | Columns are read in order and re-flowed into normal Word paragraphs rather than reproduced as fixed text boxes. |
| Tables | Changed | Simple tables become editable Word tables; dense financial tables may merge cells or lose exact column widths. |
| Fonts | Changed | PDF fonts are not embedded. The output uses Word default styles and approximate bold, italic, and heading cues. |
| Images and diagrams | Changed | Important figures are inserted as images when detected, but small decorative marks and background textures may be omitted. |
| Headers and footers | Changed | Repeated running heads are usually kept as ordinary text near the page break, not rebuilt as Word header/footer fields. |
Text is recognized and rewritten into Word paragraphs; line breaks from the PDF are removed when they look like layout artifacts.
Vision OCR creates editable text, but faint stamps, skewed photocopies, and handwriting can need manual correction.
Columns are read in order and re-flowed into normal Word paragraphs rather than reproduced as fixed text boxes.
Simple tables become editable Word tables; dense financial tables may merge cells or lose exact column widths.
PDF fonts are not embedded. The output uses Word default styles and approximate bold, italic, and heading cues.
Important figures are inserted as images when detected, but small decorative marks and background textures may be omitted.
Repeated running heads are usually kept as ordinary text near the page break, not rebuilt as Word header/footer fields.
We converted our PDF sample (91 KB) with AI Deep Read under AI Deep Read on 2026-09-11. It took 5.5 s and produced a 11 KB Word DOCX file, 88% smaller than the input. The engine raised 1 warning, listed below.
Input · sample.pdf · 91 KB
PDF 1.4, 1 page, no text layer, 1 image object
Output · sample.docx · 11 KB
Word document: 23 paragraphs, 3 headings, 1 table, 0 embedded images; fonts Consolas
A scanned PDF usually fails text selection, has image-heavy file size per page, and our detector flags no text layer. Deep Read costs 1 credit/page. Clean 300 dpi scans are very readable; faded, skewed, handwritten, or low-contrast pages are less reliable, and dense tables should be reviewed against the original.
ocrmypdf + Word manual cleanup
ocrmypdf in.pdf searchable.pdf
# Open searchable.pdf in Word and save as .docxThis adds a text layer before Word imports the PDF; it does not rebuild headings and tables with the same Deep Read page analysis.
pdftotext
pdftotext -layout in.pdf out.txtUseful for digital PDFs when plain text is enough, but it cannot create a DOCX and it reads no scanned text unless OCR was already applied.
The HTTP API and the MCP server run the exact engine this page uses (AI Deep Read); the response carries the same warnings the web converter shows. Check support first with GET /api/v1/pairs?from=pdf&to=docx.
curl -X POST https://filetypeconverters.com/api/v1/convert \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $FTC_API_KEY" \
-F "file=@input.pdf" -F "from=pdf" -F "to=docx" \
-F "deepRead=true" \
--output output.docxThe PDF to DOCX route uses the same vision pipeline for scanned and selectable PDFs so layout analysis is consistent; it does not use our office engine or a pdf2docx text-layer shortcut.
No. The generated DOCX uses Word default styles with approximate emphasis. Install and apply your house fonts in Word after conversion if typography must match.
The default output favors editable reading order, so two columns become normal paragraphs. Use layout keep only when preserving spatial order matters more than editing flow.