Some new pdf tools

PDF to Word Converter is a free tool that turns a PDF document into a Word document. It holds the layout quite well, but it does use a lot of paragraph returns to do it.
If a pdf file is locked or password protected, no pdf conversion tool will touch it. However, PDF Password Remover will do just that. Sadly, it's not free, although I managed to get a free copy via another site, so keep a look out for the offers.
I have been using FoxIt as my main pdf reader for some time now, and it works well. And I like the fact that it is tiny in comparison to the bloated Adobe Reader. However, there are some new kids on the free block, worth checking out. Nitro PDF Reader has a lot of helpful tools. And Nuance also claims many bells and whistles, including conversion to Word documents. The latter is done by uploading to a website, but so far I haven't managed to get it the feature to work. The rest looks good, though.

Converting (and editing) PDF documents

A short while ago I blogged about converting PDF files to Word documents. I settled on Koolwire (a free internet service) as the best option. I have just become aware of another free internet-based tool, called (wait for it!) PDFtoWord. They promise to keep the formating of the PDF file intact, a rarity among converters. The site also offers a PDF to Excel converter, and the ability to edit PDF documents online. This appears to be a major advance, as most pdf editing software is pretty expensive.

Converting pdf files to Word or text format

I frequently have to try and convert pdf files to editable text, and it usually is a hassle. Acrobat has a tool to grab and copy text, which you can then paste into a Word document, but among the resulting problems is that every line of text has a forced return, and paragraphs are made by two forced returns. Here is a tip to fix this, using Word's Find and Replace function. (1) Type Ctrl-H to bring up the Find and Replace dialogue box. In Find, type ^l^l. (^l finds forced, or soft, returns, so you are asking Word to find instances where there are two forced returns.) In Replace, type some nonsense character, such as ##. Choose "Replace all". (2) In Find, type ^l. In Replace, replace the ## with a spacebar space. Choose "Replace all", and this will strip out all soft returns, replacing them with a space. (3) In Find, type ##, and in Replace type ^p (the character to find Paragraph returns). Choose "Replace all". (4) Finally, in Find, replace the previous characters with a double spacebar space. In Replace, type a single space. Choose "Replace all" and all double spaces will be converted to singles. Voila! It's clumsy, I know, but at least it works. In the same way, if you have a document that uses a paragraph return at the end of every line, you can use the same technique.
Knowing there must be a better way to convert pdf documents, I have searched high and low for a freeware program, completely without success. (Yes, there are plenty of commercial products, but I am dedicated to open-source where possible.) The best I have come up with - discovered today - is an internet service, KoolWIRE, which is rather nifty. Using the site, you email them a copy of the pdf file, and they quickly email you back a Word conversion (mine came back within two minutes, which is remarkable). The result was not perfect, but the closest to the originating document that I have seen in tests.