A scanned PDF does not convert to Word like a text PDF: first you have to recognise the letters in the image (OCR) and then take that text into an editable document.
Why a scan needs OCR
If you can select words with the mouse, you have a digital PDF: convert it to Word and check tables. If selecting does nothing, each page is a photo. Turning a photo into text and extracting text from a scanned document are the same problem, with or without a PDF wrapping the image.
Recommended flow
- Check whether it is a scanTry selecting text in the PDF. If you cannot, it is an image: a direct conversion to Word will not recover letters.
- Turn the pages into imagesConvert the PDF to JPG. If it has many pages, respect the tool’s maximum or extract the ones you need first.
- Extract the text with OCRUpload each sharp image to image to text, review the .txt and paste it into Word. Fix amounts, names and line breaks.
The PDF to Word tool is still useful when the file already has native text. On a scan, use it only after you have recovered the content, not as a magical first step. There is no published one-click “scanned PDF to perfect Word” product.