In everyday life, it is not uncommon to use the copy-paste function (ctrl+c / Ctrl+v) to retrieve information from one document and transfer it to another. However, the differences in formats between documents can sometimes turn this seemingly simple task into an obstacle course. This is especially the case if you want to copy and paste text from a PDF into Word.
If you've ever tried this fairly simple manipulation, you know what I'm talking about. You've probably noticed that many sentences are truncated and the rest of the text is wrapped.
This isn't really a problem when it's a small paragraph, but it becomes a problem if you have to copy and paste the content of several pages! A real pain: the way the text is pasted forces you to do the tedious task of correcting it line by line to make it readable and presentable.
most recent versions of Word include the PDF to DOCX conversion feature (just open a PDF from Word to start the conversion), but if you are using an older version or an open source alternative you have it in the baba!
Copy and Paste Text from PDF to Word Without Ruining the Layout
Certainly, there are online tools and services (like ILovePDF) that allow you to convert PDFs to Word, but it takes more time than doing a simple copy and paste and that's why it can be advantageous to know how to do it properly from Word (or any other similar software that you regularly use to work with text).
The good news is that there is a trick for this, and it is particularly simple. Indeed, we will see how to make sure that the sentences truncated by a line break (which correspond to the line break of the PDF) are reconstituted and that these terrible line breaks disappear. Moreover, in the strict sense, these line breaks are in reality paragraph breaks. It is a detail, but it is important for what follows.
Difference between “line break” and “paragraph break”
In Word, line breaks and paragraph breaks are two separate things and will impact the formatting of your text.
The paragraph break, symbolized by the paragraph mark (¶), indicates to the word processor that you are leaving a paragraph. You will be able to create a new paragraph which will keep or not the style of the previous paragraph.
The line break, symbolized by a return arrow (↵), returns the text to the line but always in the same paragraph. Your text will then retain the style of the current paragraph.
Replace Paragraph Breaks in Word to Clean Up Your Text
In Word, it is possible to search for all those paragraph breaks that you accidentally add when you copy and paste text from a PDF into Word, and replace them using the tool Find and Replace.
- Open the dialog box Find and Replace using the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + H in Word.
- In the field Search, enter: ^p (^p matches the character ¶).
- Leave the field Replace with empty.
- Click on Replace all.
Normally, if everything went well, you should get readable text in Word with sentences that are not cut off by paragraph breaks!
If you ever have a line break problem (↵), you will have to do a search for ^l instead of ^p.
Show formatting marks in Word
If you want to better understand what happens when you need to copy and paste text from a PDF into Word, a good habit is to view the formatting marks in word (tabs, spaces, paragraph marks, etc.).
To do this, you will have to rummage through the options of Microsoft's word processor:
- Meet you in File > Options > View
- In the section Always show these formatting marks on screen, select the brands you want to appear. If you want them all, select the option Show all formatting marks.
- Click on OK to validate, and that's it.
And there you have it, with this simple trick you should get better results when you need to copy and paste text from a PDF into Word!
Article updated on May 7, 2025 by Byothe
