Complete Guide: Converting Word and Excel to PDF, and Extracting Text from PDF Files

When You Need PDF Conversion

Documents created in Word or Excel may have layout issues or be edited by recipients depending on their environment. Converting to PDF format offers the following benefits:

• Fixed layout: Displays identically on any device
• Edit prevention: Content cannot be easily changed
• File size reduction: Documents with images can be compressed (depending on settings)
• Print consistency: Same output regardless of printer type
• Security: Password protection and print restrictions can be applied

PDF format is required in many situations, including business documents, resumes, invoices, and presentation materials.

How to Convert Word to PDF

Microsoft Word for Windows

1. Open the document in Word
2. Select "File" → "Export" → "Create PDF/XPS Document"
3. Specify save location and click "Publish"

Alternatively: "File" → "Save As" → select "PDF" as file format

Microsoft Word for Mac

1. Open the document in Word
2. Select "File" → "Save As"
3. Choose "PDF" as file format
4. Click "Export"

Google Docs

1. Open the document
2. Select "File" → "Download" → "PDF Document (.pdf)"
3. Download starts automatically

Google Docs enables conversion with just a browser, no Office software required.

macOS Standard Feature (Works with All Apps)

macOS has a built-in feature for creating PDFs from any application.

1. Open document in any app
2. "File" → "Print" (or Command + P)
3. Click the "PDF" button in the lower left
4. Select "Save as PDF"

This method works with any app, not just Word—Pages, Numbers, TextEdit, and more.

How to Convert Excel to PDF

Excel requires more careful attention than Word when converting to PDF.

Microsoft Excel for Windows

1. Open the workbook in Excel
2. Select "File" → "Export" → "Create PDF/XPS Document"
3. Use "Options" to specify print range and sheets
4. Specify save location and click "Publish"

Microsoft Excel for Mac

1. Open the workbook in Excel
2. Select "File" → "Save As"
3. Choose "PDF" as file format
4. Click "Export"

Key Points When Converting Excel to PDF

1. Print Range Settings

Not the entire Excel sheet is converted—only the range set as "Print Area" becomes the PDF. Without a print range set, the system automatically selects areas with data, but this may include unintended blank pages.

Solution: Go to "Page Layout" tab → "Print Area" → "Set Print Area" to specify only the necessary range.

2. Page Break Verification

Tables that don't fit on A4 size are automatically split across multiple pages. Break positions may be unnatural, so checking "View" → "Page Break Preview" beforehand is important.

Solution: In Page Break Preview, drag the blue lines to adjust page break positions.

3. Scale Adjustment

If a table is too large and splits across multiple pages, selecting "Print Scaling" in the "Page Layout" tab and choosing "Fit to 1 page wide by 1 page tall" can fit everything on one page. However, this may make text too small, so readability should be verified.

4. Gridlines and Headings

By default, gridlines (cell borders) are not printed. To include gridlines, check "Print" under "Gridlines" in the "Sheet Options" section of the "Page Layout" tab.

Google Sheets

1. Open the spreadsheet
2. Select "File" → "Download" → "PDF Document (.pdf)"
3. In the print settings dialog, specify page orientation, paper size, and scale
4. Click "Export"

How to Extract Text from PDFs

Methods for copying text from PDF documents or saving as text data.

For PDFs with Selectable Text

Acrobat Reader (Free)

1. Open the PDF
2. Drag with the text selection tool
3. Right-click → "Copy" to save text to clipboard

macOS Preview

1. Open the PDF
2. Select text and copy with Command + C

Browser (Chrome, Edge, Safari)

1. Open PDF in browser
2. Select and copy text

Most PDFs allow text selection and copying this way.

For PDFs Without Selectable Text (Scanned PDFs)

PDFs created by scanning paper documents or saved as images appear to show text, but are actually stored as "images," preventing text selection.

In these cases, OCR (Optical Character Recognition) technology must be used to read text from images.

What Is OCR?

OCR is technology that automatically recognizes characters in scanned documents or images and converts them to editable text data. Accuracy decreases with handwritten text, old documents, or low-resolution images, but printed documents can be recognized with high precision.

Text Extraction Methods Using OCR

Adobe Acrobat Pro (Paid)

1. Open scanned PDF
2. Select "Tools" → "Recognize Text" → "In This File"
3. Choose language and execute "Recognize Text"
4. After completion, text selection becomes possible

Google Drive (Free)

1. Upload scanned PDF to Google Drive
2. Right-click file → "Open with" → "Google Docs"
3. OCR automatically executes and text is extracted

Google Drive's OCR is free with good accuracy, sufficient for simple purposes.

Online OCR Tools

Free OCR services are available:

• Online OCR (https://www.onlineocr.net/)
• i2OCR (https://www.i2ocr.com/)

However, exercise caution with security when uploading documents containing confidential information.

PDF ToolsMerge, split, extract, and delete PDF pages securely in your browser.

This tool allows PDF merging, splitting, compression, and image extraction directly in your browser, processing files locally without uploading, ensuring security.

Optimizing Image Quality and File Size in PDF Conversion

When PDFs contain images, file size can become excessive. Compression is necessary when hitting email attachment or upload limits.

Compression Settings in Word and Excel

For Word

1. "File" → "Export" → "Create PDF/XPS Document"
2. Click "Options"
3. Select "Minimum size (publishing online)"

For Excel

1. "File" → "Export" → "Create PDF/XPS Document"
2. Select "Minimum size" in "Options"

Choosing "Minimum size" reduces image resolution, significantly decreasing file size. However, print quality suffers, so "Standard" is better for printing purposes.

How to Compress Existing PDFs

macOS Preview

1. Open PDF
2. "File" → "Export"
3. Select "Reduce File Size" in "Quartz Filter"

Adobe Acrobat Pro

1. "File" → "Save As" → "Reduced Size PDF"

Online Compression Tools

• Smallpdf (https://smallpdf.com/compress-pdf)
• iLovePDF (https://www.ilovepdf.com/compress_pdf)

These are free but require caution with confidential documents.

Font Embedding to Prevent Character Corruption

When creating PDFs, if fonts aren't installed on the recipient's system, characters may not display correctly. To prevent this, font embedding must be enabled.

Font Embedding in Word

1. "File" → "Options" → "Save"
2. Check "Embed fonts in the file"
3. Select "Embed only the characters used in the document" (reduces file size)

This ensures correct display of special fonts in any environment.

How to Password-Protect PDFs

Password protection is recommended when sending PDFs containing confidential information.

Adobe Acrobat (Pro version)

1. "Tools" → "Protect" → "Encrypt with Password"
2. Check "Require a password to open the document"
3. Set password and save

macOS Preview

1. Open PDF
2. "File" → "Export"
3. Check "Encrypt" and set password

Online Tools

Free password protection tools exist, but for confidential documents, locally-processed tools are safer.

Summary

Converting Word and Excel to PDF is easy with OS standard features or Office export functions, but keeping these points in mind is important:

• Verify Excel print range and page breaks in advance
• Use "Minimum size" to reduce file size
• Use "Standard" to maintain high quality for printing
• Enable font embedding to prevent character corruption
• Use OCR to extract text from scanned PDFs

With proper settings, you can create PDFs that avoid layout issues and character corruption, displaying correctly in any environment.