Standard panel

The program retains page layout as faithfully as possible. Select from two layout styles:

• Flowing Column: Graphics and framed elements are placed in text boxes. Whenever possible, other text is transferred without using text boxes, so text flows from one column to another. This setting is recommended when the source file has a typical columnar structure, when the text flow is from top-to-bottom and left-to-right.

• True Page: When using True Page, all elements are placed in text boxes, including text in columns. This setting is recommended for pages with a complex layout containing many framed elements and when the text flow between columns is untypical.

Select which elements to retain or drop during the conversion.

• Rule Lines: Retain or drop vertical and horizontal dividing lines between paragraphs. This parameter has no effect on table cell borders.

• Headers and Footers: Select this to have headers and footers detected and transmitted to the target application. Clear this to have headers and footers transferred as normal text elements.

• Hyperlinks: Select this to have hyperlinks detected and transferred. Clear this to have link text transferred as normal text.

• Text and Background Color: Select this to have text coloring transferred to the Word document. Shaded and colored backgrounds will also be transferred. Clear this to have all text transferred as black, and colored or shaded backgrounds converted to white. Clear this setting does not prevent the transfer of colored or grayscale graphics.

  Selecting this is recommended when the source file contains colored texts or backgrounds because layout retention is likely to be better. Clear this when the source does not contain colored texts and backgrounds will speed up conversions.

  Retain

Select how PDF Convert should handle image-only pages. The program converts image-only pages using Optical Character Recognition (OCR). An Icon in the top-right corner of the Preview panel tells you whether the displayed page has a text layer or not:

• Page has text layer

• Page is image-only

This section offers the following options and settings:

• Process documents using OCR: Turn this option on to process a source document using OCR. Any text layer in the source file is ignored. Other options related to processing image-only pages are ignored, and the whole document is processed using the OCR technology. The most typical reasons for using this option:

  • Non-standard encoded font detection fails.

  • Many documents contain scanned images of pages with some textual header or footer information. The OCR processing results in a textual output file instead of images.

• Image-only pages: Select from the following choices:

  • Convert Page with OCR: The program will perform the conversion by calling its built-in OCR. Full language support is available with more than 100 languages. Click the OCR Language tool to change recognition language and reject character.

  • Skip: Image-only pages are skipped. When pages are skipped, you are notified at the end of processing. The converted document will have fewer pages than the source PDF.

  • Add to Document as Image: Image-only pages appear in the target file as full-page images. Text on those pages is not editable, but the pages can be printed. You are notified at the end of processing if pages are transferred as images. The target file may be large; you can reduce the file size by setting Color Conversion to Grayscale or Black-and-White or lowering the resolution for graphics elsewhere in this panel.

  There is one password protection scenario in which the PDF is treated as if it were image-only and are handled according to your settings here. See Protected PDF Files.

• Inspect First Pages: Select the check box to have the first pages of source files inspected and if the pages are image-only, stop processing the current file. Define how many pages should be inspected by entering a value between 1 and 10. We suggest placing a value of at least 2 because many source files have an image-only cover page followed by pages with text layers. The default value is 5.

• Recognize non-standard encoded pages: Most source files use standard character encoding. If this is not the case, enable this option to extract text using OCR (default). This means slower processing but more reliable results. The Language selection made in the OCR Settings dialog box is used.

This section offers the following options and settings:

• Color Conversion: There are three color categories: Color, Grayscale, Black-and-white.

  • Same as Original: Create an output file with the same color category as the original. You must select this option if you want color to appear in your converted document.

  • Grayscale: Convert color pages to grayscale. Grayscale pages remain as grayscale; black-and-white pages remain as black-and-white.

  • Black-and-White: Convert color and grayscale pages to black-and-white. This option delivers smaller file sizes, but grayscale or color pictures lose all their detail.

• Resolution for Graphic Elements: Select a maximum permitted resolution value, from 72 to 300 dots per inch (dpi). If the source file has images with a lower value than you specify, the resolution in the target application will be the same as in the source file. If the source file has images with a higher value than you specify, they are reduced to the given value.

  When the source file has large images, or it has many image-only pages and you requested that these be transferred as image, the resolution setting strongly influences the size of the resulting file. A lower resolution is suitable for web display, but higher resolution is recommended for printing.