How do I make sure my exported Word document looks good and doesn't have weird spacing?

Before exporting, check if the fonts used in your PDF are embedded or installed on your computer. After exporting, if spacing is still off in Word, go to Font > Advanced > Spacing: Normal to adjust it. Choose 'Retain Flowing Text' if you plan to heavily edit the text, as it helps with text wrapping.

What is the difference between 'Retain Flowing Text' and 'Retain Page Layout' when exporting a PDF?

Option Purpose Best For. Retain Flowing Text Prioritizes natural text wrapping and editing. Documents with a lot of text you will rewrite. Retain Page Layout Tries to keep the exact visual design of the PDF. Forms, tables, or documents where precise layout is key.

◆ Acrobat · convert

Multiple Finance Format Requests

Over the last [N=10] proposals I end up redoing cost summaries for finance teams who prefer different views. Identify …

1ready prompt

1real task

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When to use it

real situations

You need to edit a report that was given to you as a PDF.
You want to put data from a PDF table into an Excel sheet for calculations.
You have a PDF presentation and need to make changes in PowerPoint.

AI prompts

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DBecome — “help me grow”Over the last [N=10] proposals I end up redoing cost summaries for finance teams who prefer…+

Over the last [N=10] proposals I end up redoing cost summaries for finance teams who prefer different views. Identify the pattern in what finance actually needs to approve a service this quarter, propose one canonical one-page cost summary layout that covers 9 out of 10 asks, and advise on the small notes to include so it doesn't trigger extra questions.

when the reply comes backPush once: ask it to sharpen the weakest part, and to say what it assumed.

How to do it

the tool · the steps · what to avoid

1
Open your PDF file in Adobe Acrobat.
2
Select the Export PDF tool in the right pane.
3
Choose Spreadsheet as your export format.
4
Select Microsoft Excel Workbook (.xlsx).
5
Click Export.
6
Choose a location to save the exported Excel file and enter a file name.
7
Click Save.
Best practiceIf tables in your PDF are not converting cleanly, try using Acrobat’s Enhance Scans tool before exporting for better results.

In the appWith the API

You can review the converted Excel file immediately after export to check if all tables and data were preserved accurately.

This runs in the Acrobat app - there is no separate API for this task.

Glossary

words on this page

Export PDFTo change a PDF file into another file type, like Word or Excel.ExampleYou can export PDF to Word if you need to make extensive edits to the document's text.

Retain Flowing TextAn option that makes the exported file easy to edit, with text wrapping normally.ExampleChoosing 'retain flowing text' when converting a PDF to Word makes the document easy to edit.

Retain Page LayoutAn export option that tries to keep the exact visual design and position of elements from the original PDF.ExampleWhen converting to a new format, selecting 'retain page layout' keeps all images and text in their original places.

Who does this

3 roles

Financial AnalystAccountantData Entry Specialist

FAQ

about this task

Before exporting, check if the fonts used in your PDF are embedded or installed on your computer.
After exporting, if spacing is still off in Word, go to Font > Advanced > Spacing: Normal to adjust it.
Choose 'Retain Flowing Text' if you plan to heavily edit the text, as it helps with text wrapping.

Option	Purpose	Best For
Retain Flowing Text	Prioritizes natural text wrapping and editing.	Documents with a lot of text you will rewrite.
Retain Page Layout	Tries to keep the exact visual design of the PDF.	Forms, tables, or documents where precise layout is key.

Text looks garbled because the fonts used in the original PDF are not embedded or installed on your computer. Acrobat cannot find the correct fonts, so it uses incorrect ones. Always make sure the source fonts are available for a clean export.

Yes, you can. When exporting a scanned PDF, make sure to enable the 'Recognize text if needed' option. Acrobat will use OCR (Optical Character Recognition) to find and convert the text from the image into editable text, which you can then use in Word or Excel.

The 'Export PDF' feature in Adobe Acrobat allows you to change a PDF document into various other file formats, such as Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, or even plain text. This is useful when you need to edit the content of a PDF in another program.

Multiple Finance Format Requests

When to use it

AI prompts

How to do it

Glossary

The real tasks

Who does this

FAQ

Sources

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When it fails