PDF to Word document

Format facts

Source MIME

application/pdf

Target MIME

application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document

Max input size

40 MB

Typical output size

0.7-1.5x input size

Lossy?

Yes, see quirks

Backed by

pdf-to-word

Availability

Live public API

Endpoint

POST /api/v1/pdf/to-word

How the conversion runs

1. Step 1. POST PDF bytes to /api/v1/pdf/to-word; encrypted files and malformed object streams are rejected.
2. Step 2. The worker clusters blocks, paragraphs and tables before emitting an Office Open XML package.
3. Step 3. Fonts are mapped to common Word-compatible fallbacks when the exact embedded font is unavailable.

API example

curl -X POST https://api.docushell.com/api/v1/pdf/to-word \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $DOCUSHELL_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/pdf" \
  -H "x-file-name: input.pdf" \
  --data-binary "@input.pdf"

Submit returns a queued job with job_id. Poll GET /api/v1/jobs/{id}, then download with GET /api/v1/jobs/{id}/download.

Format-specific quirks

• Form fields are rendered as flat text rather than editable Word controls.
• Complex vector drawings may be flattened because Word cannot represent every PDF path construct.
• Source PDFs do not contain Word track-change metadata, so revisions are not reconstructed.

Frequently asked questions

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