Standard Document

This panel appears in Convert Assistant if

 

Standard Document icon

Standard is selected in the drop-down list of the Mode tool, or it is selected in the Options menu. This panel also appears if you click Settings in the Convert Pages dialog box of Power PDF.

 

Layout

The program retains page layout as faithfully as possible. Choose 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.

Note

If layout has changed during conversion, try reprocessing the file with the other setting.

 

Retain

Choose 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. De-select this to have headers and footers transferred as normal text elements.

Hyperlinks

Select this to have hyperlinks detected and transferred. De-select 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. De-select this to have all text transferred as black, and colored or shaded backgrounds converted to white. De-selecting 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. De-selecting this when the source does not contain colored texts and backgrounds will speed up conversions.

 

Processing Options

Choose here 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:

text layer icon

Page has text layer

image-only icon

Page is image-only

 

Process documents using OCR

Turn this option on if you want 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 will be processed using the OCR technology. The most typical reasons for using this option can be:

Image-only pages

Select from the following three 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.

OCR settings icon

Click the OCR Language tool to change recognition language and reject character.

 

Skip

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

Inspect First Pages

Select the checkbox 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.

Note

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

 

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. This means slower processing but more reliable results. The default value is "enabled". Language selection made in the OCR Settings dialog box will be used.
 

Handling Graphics

 

Color Conversion

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

Same as Original

Select this to create an output file with the same color category as the original. You must select this if you want color to appear in your converted document.

Grayscale

Select this to have color pages converted to grayscale. Grayscale pages remain as grayscale; black-and-white pages remain as black-and-white.

Black-and-White

Select this to have color and grayscale pages converted to black-and-white. This will deliver smaller file sizes, but grayscale or color pictures will lose all their detail.

Note

The Color Conversion setting and the Resolution setting are applied to all graphics in the source file, and also to image-only pages when they are transferred as image pages into the target application.

 

Resolution for Graphic Elements

Choose 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 will be 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.

 

Notes

The processing settings are stored separately for each processing mode.

For advice on choosing the best mode for your needs, see Choosing the Processing Mode.