>>>Anything really cheap, or free, that will save a PDF to Word easily, or allow annotations? Found one that costs $49, but hoping for something even less: http://www.solidpdf.com/features.htm Thanks!
>>
>>PDF to Word is always going to be tough. PDF is not a "text" format. A PDF is a picture, just like JPG or GIF. It is not made up of words. It is made up of vector graphics that render properly at any resolution.
>>
>>Converting a picture to text is ... ummmm ... OCR. I've yet to see an OCR package that's more accurate/cost-effective than paying a typist if there's even a LITTLE formatting involved. Of course, that all depends on the quality of the incoming PDF.
>>
>>The Word MVPs generally recommend the typist route because they've all been tasked with cleaning up the result of OCR.
>>
>>PDF is great as a write-only file format. <g>
>
>Not entirely true, a properly made PDF contains text as ASCII.

That depends on how you define "properly made". ;-)

A PDF that was made by full-blown Acrobat may have text, depending on the options set within Acrobat. A PDF created by a printer driver like PrimoPDF or CutePDF likely will not. Printer drivers typically deal with dots on a page.

Either one will work just fine in a web browser or in Acrobat Reader. Which one is "properly made"? ;-) Which one is most likely to convert willingly to Word? Which one are you most likely to have to deal with? <g>

Dan