How to Convert and Edit PDF to Google Doc You Should Know [Solved]
Last Updated on September 21, 2025 by Tina Clark
Google’s suite of cloud-based applications makes collaboration with your colleagues quick and easy. When you convert a PDF to Google Docs, you can open and edit the files without sending them back and forth. Will a PDF file lose its format when converting it into Google Docs? Yes, but it is difficult, especially when there are multiple images within the PDF file. Here you can find some workaround to convert PDF to Google Docs for further editing. Just learn more details and choose the desired one.
Part 1: The Simple Method to Convert PDF to Google Docs
Whether you need to convert PDF to Google Docs compatible formats, such as Word, Excel, RTF, or other file formats, or even edit the images/texts/forms of the PDFs, PDFelement is a versatile PDF converter with some advanced OCR algorithms. Moreover, there are a whole series of editing and managing features to touch up PDFs.
1. Convert PDF to Word, Excel, RTF, and other Google Docs file formats.
2. Preserve the text files, images, formatting, and others for PDF conversion.
3. Provide the batch PDF to Google Docs conversion for files simultaneously.
4. Extract the text, forms, and images from the advanced OCR algorithms.
Step 1: Download and install PDFelement, you can launch the program on your computer and click the Open PDF button to import the PDF files you want to convert.
Step 2: Before selecting the Convert button to convert PDF to Google Docs, you can extract the text and images from the PDF with the OCR algorithm. It enables you to add them back to the converted files.
Step 3: To convert multiple PDFs to Google Docs files, you only need to click the Convert button and choose the To Word option to convert PDF to Word documents.
Tips: Google Docs also support Excel, RTF, and others. If there are multiple forms in the PDF, you can select Excel as the output. When you need to convert the plain text PDF, RTF is another option.
Step 4: Click the link next to the Output Folder button to go to the destination folder for the Word file. After that, you can upload the edited, converted PDFs to Google Docs and share them with your networks.
Part 2: How to Open and Convert PDF to Google Docs Directly
Google Drive is the straightforward way to convert a PDF to Google Docs if you do not mind losing the original formatting as well as images. It enables you to manage, print, and add some comments. But when you need to convert it to Google Docs, so that you can work with others, PDFs with plain text should be the choice.
Step 1: Log in to your Google account and click the Google Apps button in the upper right corner to choose the Drive option.
Step 2: Click the New button and select the File upload option to import the PDF file.
Step 3: Once you have uploaded the PDF, you can double-click the PDF to preview the details. It provides features to rename, add a star, and open it in a new window.
Step 4: To convert PDFs to Google Docs, you can right-click the PDF file and choose the Open with button and select the Google Docs option.
Step 5: It will direct to a new link for the converted PDF, which remains the text files without the formatting or images.
Note: Compared to the original PDF, the converted file only retains the text. It does not extract the images from the PDFs. Moreover, some of the text files are misplaced or not correct.
Part 3: How to Convert PDF to Word for Google Docs
How about converting PDF to Word for Google Docs? As for the method, it does not work on all Office versions. Make sure you are using Office 2013 or above. It will retain some of the structures and frames of the PDF, but save them as images instead of text. Compared to the method of Google Drive, it preserves more details of the original PDF.
Step 1: Open Office Word on your computer. Click the Open button in the left menu and choose the Browse button to open the PDF in Word.
Step 2: Locate and select the PDF from the Open window, you can find the reminder for converting the PDF to a Word file. Click the OK button to confirm the conversion.
Step 3: It will convert PDF files automatically on your computer. Just upload the Word file and open the converted PDF in Google Docs. It enables you to edit more files in Google Docs.
Notes: There are more details and images compared to the output of Google Drive. But the checkbox, underline, and other elements together with the related text files are saved as images.
Part 4: FAQs about How to Convert PDF to Google Docs
Conclusion
When you are looking for methods to convert PDF to Google Docs, here are the workable methods you should know. As for the PDF with plain text files, Google Drive is the initial choice. PDF with photos only, you can use Word to make a PDF into a Google Docs file. PDFelement is a versatile method when you need to convert some complicated PDF files.