Developed by Adobe in the early 90s. The PDF format was an instant success, because it came at a time when both document digitization and the emergence of the Internet were about to begin. Until then, sharing documents could be a headache, both because of the resources necessary to do so and when choosing a suitable format so that the recipient (or more complicated recipients) of the document can view it without problems.

Its extreme utility, even more so in the context we have mentioned above, explains its great success, viz Adobe decided to make it an open standard in 2008 It was the definitive milestone to become the universal format for document sharing. Because? Well, because until then the applications to view them were free, but the ones needed to create them were not. This, of course, meant that word processors, spreadsheets, design and layout applications, presentations, etc., now allowed their content to be exported to PDF format overnight.

This is of course sensational, but it also comes with a handicap, What can we do if we receive a PDF document and need to edit it? In this case, the solution gets complicated because most apps don’t allow it, and many of the ones that do have important limitations that mess up formatting, styles, links, images, and so on. So if you receive a text document and need to edit it, you will need to use a PDF to Word converter, but are they simple or paid? easy to use or complicated? Can they be used with any document? You must have many doubts running through your mind.

To solve all these doubts Let’s see how to do this conversion using Smallpdf, a service with which we can perform this operation in the easiest way you can imagine. In addition, it is completely free, although it also offers a paid version with more features. But don’t worry, you can do what we show you in this tutorial with the basic and free version of the service.

Obviously, the first thing we need is a PDF document. For this example, we’ll use the lease template we downloaded from Idealista, but to try it out yourself, you can use any file you have and want to edit. You can have it stored locally or in the cloud, as the service is compatible with Dropbox and Google Drive.

Once the file is found, open this PDF to Word converter and use its central part to select the PDF you want to convert. To do this, you have several options:

• Drag and drop: The fastest method, simply click on the PDF you want to convert, drag it anywhere in the blue area and it will automatically upload to the service.
• Choose a file: If you prefer this method, click the button (1) and use the operating system dialog to browse the folders on your system until you find the PDF file you want to convert.
• Select a cloud service: As we mentioned earlier, you can also select a file directly from the cloud. To do this, click on the arrow (2) and from the menu that appears (3), select the online storage service where you will save the file for conversion.
  In the latter case, a dialog box will open allowing you to log in to said service and then you will be able to find and select the PDF file.

From that moment on, the process is completely automatic and quite fast. First, Smallpdf loads and parses the document:

And then it will proceed with its conversion:

Don’t worry about the time, as long as it is not exceptionally long, the operation will be very quick. In this example with a 15-page PDF document, the upload and conversion is completed in less than five seconds, and you will be able to download the document, now in Word format, or, if you prefer, save it to a cloud storage service

Once you’ve downloaded it, open it with Word and as you can see, it will keep all the style parameters, but you’ll be able to edit it without any problems:

It couldn’t be simpler, could it? No need to install apps, no risk of losing the document format, with the convenience of accessing both local files and files stored in the cloud… and what’s more, completely free. If you need a PDF to Word converter, don’t even think about it, this is the solution you’ve been looking for.