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PDF, Word, Excel and PowerPoint help

These guides cover PDFs inside other software. Word, Excel and PowerPoint go both ways here: a .docx, a workbook or a .pptx becomes a checked PDF, and a PDF becomes a checked document, workbook or deck. Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, Apple Pages, Numbers and Keynote, CSV and Markdown each get a guide naming the export step and the tool that finishes the job. Zip files and attachments are covered too.

Word and Excel convert here, in both directions

Excel to PDF reads an .xlsx or .xls workbook in this browser tab and draws the cells onto pages at a page setup you choose: which sheets, the scale, the paper, the orientation, the margins, gridlines, row and column labels and page numbers. Paper, orientation and margins start from each sheet's own print settings. The finished PDF is reopened with a second reader, every page is rendered, and the cell text is compared in order before the download appears.

PDF to Excel goes the other way. It finds tables by looking for text that repeats the same column positions down the page, writes them to one worksheet or one per page or table with every value as text, then reopens the workbook and compares worksheet names, row counts and cell strings with what it detected. PDF to CSV uses the same detector for a single plain-text file.

Both refuse what they cannot do honestly. The PDF side needs selectable text, so a scan is rejected rather than turned into an empty sheet. The Excel side draws cell values and their formatting but not charts, images, shapes, comments, pivot tables or conditional formatting, and it says so before you convert.

Word converts here too, and what it costs you

Word to PDF lays a .docx out in this browser tab, drawing its paragraphs, headings, tables, pictures, colours, headers, footers and list numbering with the fonts embedded in the file, then reopens the PDF it wrote with a second reader and compares the text before there is a download. PDF to Word goes the other way, rebuilding paragraphs, headings and tables from where the text was drawn rather than from a structure the PDF kept, because a PDF does not keep one.

That reconstruction is inference, so the result is honest rather than perfect. A table whose columns do not line up stays as paragraphs, drawn vector art does not come across, and an image-only scan is refused instead of returned empty, because reading one needs text recognition and this site has none. A filled form does come across: each field becomes a Word content control with its answer still in it. Neither direction handles legacy .doc or PowerPoint. If you still have the original document, exporting from the application that made it is always cleaner than converting the PDF back.

PowerPoint, and the decks that are not PowerPoint

PowerPoint to PDF draws a .pptx deck one slide per page and reopens the PDF to compare the slide text before the download appears. Speaker notes are not part of a slide, so they are not exported; Save PowerPoint as PDF with notes gives the PowerPoint print path that keeps them. PDF to PowerPoint goes the other way, one page per slide, with the text placed where the PDF drew it.

Google Slides and Keynote have no converter here and do not need one: both export a PDF from their own File menu, and the guides for Google Slides and Keynote give that step, then hand the PDF to Compress PDF when it has to fit an upload limit. A PDF going into either one goes through PDF to PowerPoint first, because both import a .pptx and neither imports a PDF.

Google Workspace, Apple iWork, CSV and Markdown

Google Docs and Apple Pages export a PDF themselves, so the Google Docs guide and the Pages guide teach that menu and then the check. The other direction runs through PDF to Word: a .docx opens in both Google Docs and Pages, and a PDF opens in neither as editable text. Sheets and Numbers follow the same pattern through Excel to PDF and PDF to Excel.

A CSV is a spreadsheet with one sheet and no formatting, so CSV to PDF opens it in a spreadsheet first and prints from there, and PDF to CSV uses the same table detector as PDF to Excel. Markdown to PDF renders CommonMark and tables in this tab; its guide covers what a README needs before it prints well.

Putting a PDF into a document

Word, Excel and Google Docs all place a PDF as an object or an image rather than as flowing pages, and each one does it differently. The guides give the exact menu path for each, because the wrong path gives you an icon on the page instead of the content.

If you only need the pages to look right inside the document, exporting the PDF to images first is more predictable. PDF to images does that here.

Sending and packing

Zipping a PDF saves almost nothing, because the streams inside are already compressed. If the goal is a smaller attachment, Compress PDF to a target size does more than a zip will.

If the goal is one attachment instead of five, Merge PDFs joins them into a single file, which is easier for the recipient than a zip they have to unpack.

Questions people ask

Can I convert Excel to PDF on this site?
Yes. Excel to PDF reads .xlsx and .xls in your browser tab, lets you pick the sheets and the page setup, and reopens the PDF to compare its cell text before the download appears.
Can I convert a PDF back to Excel here?
Yes. PDF to Excel detects tables from the alignment of the PDF's own text, writes them to one worksheet or several, and checks the workbook it wrote. It needs selectable text, so it refuses a scan.
What is the best way to convert PDF to Word?
Use PDF to Word here if the PDF has selectable text: it rebuilds the .docx in your browser tab and reopens it to check 98 percent of the text came back, with nothing uploaded. Microsoft Word also converts a PDF on open, on your own machine, and is worth trying when the layout is unusual.
Does a PDF to Word converter keep the layout?
Partly, and that is true of every converter. A PDF stores finished pages, not paragraphs, so the structure is inferred. Simple documents made from Word convert cleanly. Multi column layouts, tables that span pages, and typeset documents come back needing manual repair.
Should I zip a PDF before emailing it?
Usually not. PDF streams are already compressed, so a zip saves a few percent at best and gives the recipient an extra step. Compress the PDF instead.
Can I email two PDFs as one attachment?
Merge them into one file first. One PDF is easier to open than a zip, and most mail clients preview it inline.

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