Guides
Common PDF Conversion Problems and How to Avoid Them
Most conversion problems come from a handful of causes. Once you know them, they're easy to spot – often before you even upload the file. This article goes through the common ones, explains why they happen and what to do about each.
1. "This PDF does not contain selectable text"
Why it happens: the PDF is a scan or a photo of paper. It contains a picture of the text, not the text itself. Converting to Word or Excel needs real text.
How to check: open the PDF and try to select a single word. If only the whole page highlights, it's a scan.
What to do:
- Ask for the original, digitally created PDF – for example the statement downloaded from online banking rather than a scan of a printout.
- If you only need images of the pages, use the PDF to JPG converter, which works with scans.
- To get editable text from a scan, you need OCR (text recognition) software. Our tools don't perform OCR.
2. Password-protected files are rejected
Why it happens: an encrypted file can't be read without its password, and the converters never ask for or store passwords.
What to do: open the file with its password and save an unprotected copy. In Word, use File › Info › Protect Document › Encrypt with Password and clear the password; for PDFs, use your PDF editor's security settings. Only do this for files you are entitled to unlock.
3. Documents with macros are rejected
Why it happens: macros are small programs inside Office files. They are refused for security reasons.
What to do: save a copy as a normal .docx or .xlsx (without macros) and convert that.
4. The layout in Word looks different from the PDF
Why it happens: PDFs store fixed positions; Word documents flow. The converter rebuilds paragraphs, headings, lists and tables, but complex designs – multiple columns, sidebars, text over images – can't be reproduced exactly.
What to do: start from the cleanest PDF available, install missing fonts and tidy the structure first. Our guide on converting PDF to Word without losing formatting covers this in detail.
5. Fonts look different in the PDF
Why it happens: when converting Word or Excel files to PDF, only fonts available for the conversion can be used. Common Office fonts are replaced with metric-compatible alternatives (same widths, slightly different shapes); other fonts are replaced with similar ones.
What to do: if the exact typeface matters, export the PDF from your own word processor, where the font is installed. Otherwise, check line and page breaks once after converting.
6. Tables come out as plain text
Why it happens: tables without border lines have no visible grid, so a converter can't always tell where one cell ends and the next begins.
What to do:
- For editing in Word, select the text and use Insert › Table › Convert Text to Table.
- For numbers, use the PDF to Excel converter, which separates aligned columns, such as on bank statements, into cells.
- See how to extract tables from a PDF for other methods.
7. Spreadsheet columns are split across pages
Why it happens: the sheet is wider than the page, and the file's own print settings don't scale it.
What to do: in the Excel to PDF converter, keep Fit all columns on one page width selected, and let the orientation switch to landscape automatically. More in how to convert Excel to PDF.
8. "The file is too large" or "too many pages"
Why it happens: every tool has limits on file size, page count and image dimensions, to keep conversions fast for everyone.
What to do:
- Long PDFs: convert only the pages you need, by saving them as a separate PDF first.
- Large photos: reduce them with the Image Resizer before converting to PDF.
- Large Word files: images are usually the cause – compress pictures in Word (Picture Format › Compress Pictures).
9. The wrong file type
Why it happens: a file's extension doesn't match its content – for example a PNG renamed to .jpg, or a PDF saved as .doc. Files are checked by their actual content, not just the name.
What to do: the error message tells you what the file really is and suggests the right tool. Open the file in its real program and save it in the format you need.
10. The conversion takes too long
Why it happens: very complex files – hundreds of images, huge tables, intricate graphics – can exceed the time allowed for one conversion.
What to do: split the document into smaller parts, reduce image sizes, or remove pages you don't need, then try again.
Quick checklist before converting
- Can you select text in the PDF? (Needed for Word and Excel.)
- Is the file free of passwords and macros?
- Is it within the size and page limits shown on the tool page?
- Is it the original digital file, not a scan of a printout?
- Do you really need the whole document, or just a few pages?
Summary
Most failed or messy conversions trace back to scans, passwords, macros, missing fonts, borderless tables or oversized files. Check those points first, start from the cleanest original you can get, and choose the converter that matches what you actually need – editable text, real numbers or simply images of the pages.
