Converting PDF files can be frustrating, especially when you don’t have software that makes the process streamlined. However, thanks to modern PDF conversion technology, you can quickly solve most conversion issues, so you can start editing your documents with ease. Let’s look at some of the most common PDF conversion issues and their solutions.
A Batch Conversion Fails
After looking up how to convert PDF to Word, you’ve probably found a way to transfer the file over successfully with a few hiccups. It saves time to convert multiple PDF files at once, but it can be frustrating if, for some reason, you can only transfer one at a time. Without batch conversion, you could sometimes spend hours clicking each individual PDF file for conversion.
What’s even more frustrating is when you get the conversion process to work, only for it to fail because one of the files is corrupt. If that’s the case, you will need to repair the file before converting, which you can do by restoring a previous file version or extracting the data yourself. You could also try using an alternative reader that isn’t Adobe Acrobat.
Conversion has Black Marks
Usually, black marks will appear on the document if you’re converting a PDF file to PowerPoint or an Image, though it can happen with almost any conversion type. You can use the following steps to solve this issue:
- Open the PDF file in any PDF viewer and click Print via the icon on the main menu or by selecting File then Print.
- Choose PDF Converter printer from the list of printers.
- Once you click the button, the print dispatcher should appear.
- If you want to keep the reprinted and original version, renamed the file before saving it.
- Locate the field “When the PDF file is created” and choose to open in PDF Converter before clicking OK.
- Select the conversion type of your choice from the drop-down menu.
- Select the whole file if you want to convert the entire document, or if the black marks are located in a specific area, you can choose which page you wish to convert.
- Click the Convert button, and the black marks should disappear.
Conversion Document has Strange Characters
Sometimes when you try to convert a document, the reader will produce a document full of strange characters that were added during the conversion process. You won’t need to go into the document and manually delete all of those strange characters. Instead, try to convert the original document again with the OCR option turned on.
OCR, which stands for optical character recognition, helps a PDF document that is scanned to understand the file it’s scanning. To turn this on, go into the edit menu for most readers and click on Convert using OCR. Even if you aren’t scanning a document, you could run into strange characters when converting from another file, so leave this on during conversion.
Scanned PDFs Aren’t Converting
Before looking into any other issue resulting in a poor conversion from a scanned document to a PDF file, ensure that OCR is turned on by going into the Edit menu. While this may solve this issue, there could be another reason why OCR doesn’t recognize all characters in the documents. If this is the problem, try troubleshooting in the convert menu:
- Find the Conversion options in the Convert menu on your reader
- Open the advanced setting for your reader (usually requires pressing CTRL and A at the same time)
- Find the value usually called OCRInputSPI, but it may be called something different. If there is a value of 300 besides the option, you’re in the right place. Change this to 400 and click confirm.
Try scanning the document again. If your scanned PDF file is still not converting, you may need to change the value to a higher number.
Converting PDF files can be frustrating, especially when you don’t have software that makes the process streamlined. However, thanks to modern PDF conversion technology, you can quickly solve most conversion issues, so you can start editing your documents with ease. Let’s look at some of the most common PDF conversion issues and their solutions.
A Batch Conversion Fails
After looking up how to convert PDF to Word, you’ve probably found a way to transfer the file over successfully with a few hiccups. It saves time to convert multiple PDF files at once, but it can be frustrating if, for some reason, you can only transfer one at a time. Without batch conversion, you could sometimes spend hours clicking each individual PDF file for conversion.
What’s even more frustrating is when you get the conversion process to work, only for it to fail because one of the files is corrupt. If that’s the case, you will need to repair the file before converting, which you can do by restoring a previous file version or extracting the data yourself. You could also try using an alternative reader that isn’t Adobe Acrobat.
Conversion has Black Marks
Usually, black marks will appear on the document if you’re converting a PDF file to PowerPoint or an Image, though it can happen with almost any conversion type. You can use the following steps to solve this issue:
- Open the PDF file in any PDF viewer and click Print via the icon on the main menu or by selecting File then Print.
- Choose PDF Converter printer from the list of printers.
- Once you click the button, the print dispatcher should appear.
- If you want to keep the reprinted and original version, renamed the file before saving it.
- Locate the field “When the PDF file is created” and choose to open in PDF Converter before clicking OK.
- Select the conversion type of your choice from the drop-down menu.
- Select the whole file if you want to convert the entire document, or if the black marks are located in a specific area, you can choose which page you wish to convert.
- Click the Convert button, and the black marks should disappear.
Conversion Document has Strange Characters
Sometimes when you try to convert a document, the reader will produce a document full of strange characters that were added during the conversion process. You won’t need to go into the document and manually delete all of those strange characters. Instead, try to convert the original document again with the OCR option turned on.
OCR, which stands for optical character recognition, helps a PDF document that is scanned to understand the file it’s scanning. To turn this on, go into the edit menu for most readers and click on Convert using OCR. Even if you aren’t scanning a document, you could run into strange characters when converting from another file, so leave this on during conversion.
Scanned PDFs Aren’t Converting
Before looking into any other issue resulting in a poor conversion from a scanned document to a PDF file, ensure that OCR is turned on by going into the Edit menu. While this may solve this issue, there could be another reason why OCR doesn’t recognize all characters in the documents. If this is the problem, try troubleshooting in the convert menu:
- Find the Conversion options in the Convert menu on your reader
- Open the advanced setting for your reader (usually requires pressing CTRL and A at the same time)
- Find the value usually called OCRInputSPI, but it may be called something different. If there is a value of 300 besides the option, you’re in the right place. Change this to 400 and click confirm.
Try scanning the document again. If your scanned PDF file is still not converting, you may need to change the value to a higher number.
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