How to convert a PDF to Word on your Mac

macOS has no one-click way to turn a PDF into a Word file. Preview can't export to .docx, and Pages doesn't open PDFs as documents. What your Mac does have is Automator, which can pull a PDF's text out as a rich text file that Pages then saves as Word. Koi does it in one drag: drop the PDF on Convert, click DOCX, and a Word file lands beside it.

Be clear on what any converter can do. A PDF is laid-out pages, not a document with paragraphs, so the words come back but the exact layout rarely does. For a contract you need to edit, that's fine. For a designed brochure you want to look the same, it isn't.

We make Koi, so read this with that in mind. Everything about Koi here is what version 1.13 does. The Automator actions were checked on macOS 27, and the Pages and Preview steps come from Apple's own guides, checked October 21, 2026.

For a page or two, copy and paste is the fastest built-in way.

1. Open the PDF in Preview.
2. Choose Edit, then Select All, then Edit, then Copy.
3. Open a new document in Pages, or in Word if you have it, and paste.
4. In Pages, choose File, then Export To, then Word, and save.

You get the words, with line breaks wherever the PDF had them, so expect to join lines back into paragraphs by hand. Pictures and tables don't come along in any useful shape. A scanned PDF has no text to select at all.

Automator comes with every Mac and has an action called Extract PDF Text that saves a PDF's words as plain or rich text. Set it up once as a Quick Action and it sits in Finder's right-click menu.

1. Open Automator from Applications, choose New Document, then Quick Action.
2. At the top, set “Workflow receives current” to PDF files, in Finder.
3. Find Extract PDF Text in the Library on the left and drag it into the workflow.
4. Pick Rich Text as the output, and choose where it saves.
5. Choose File, then Save, and name it, for example PDF to Rich Text.
6. In Finder, Control-click a PDF, choose Quick Actions, then PDF to Rich Text.
7. Open the .rtf it made in Pages, then choose File, Export To, Word.

It's two files and two apps for one conversion, but it's free and stays on your Mac. Pages is free on the Mac App Store, and Apple's guide covers its Export To menu. Microsoft's own guide to opening PDFs in Word lists Word for Microsoft 365 and Word 2016 to 2024, not Word for Mac by name, so check your copy before you count on it.

1. Start dragging the PDF in Finder or on your desktop.
2. While you're still holding it, press and hold Shift. The PDF wheel opens round your pointer.
3. Drop the PDF on Convert. The wheel turns into formats.
4. Click DOCX. The Word file is saved beside the PDF and shows in Finder.

• The PDF's text is read back into paragraphs, and bigger lines become headings, so you get a document you can edit, not a page of broken lines.
• A page with almost no words on it, like a scan or a chart, goes in as a picture of the page.
• The layout, columns and fonts don't come along, and neither do pictures inside a page of words.
• Click PAGES instead for a Pages document. Koi makes the Word copy, then asks Apple's Pages to save it, so Pages has to be on your Mac. macOS asks once whether Koi may control Pages.
• The PDF is never touched. When its folder can't be written to, the copy goes to Downloads.
• A PDF a password keeps shut doesn't open.

It all runs on your Mac with Apple's PDFKit. Nothing is uploaded, which matters for a lease, a payslip or anything with your name on it. More on the Shift wheel.

• Scanned PDFs: none of these ways reads the words off a picture into Word. Koi puts a scanned page in as a picture. For the words themselves, Koi's TXT or MD reads a PDF with no text layer using your Mac's text recognition, and you can paste that into Word.
• Two columns: every way here reads the words in the order the PDF stores them, which isn't always the order you read them. Read the Word file through before you send it on.
• Locked PDFs: a PDF that needs a password to open can't be converted until you open it with the password and save a copy without one.
• Upload sites: an online converter sends your file to someone else's server. Read their terms before you drop in anything private.

Need two paragraphs out of a PDF once? Copy them from Preview. Convert PDFs now and then and don't mind a few steps? Set up the Automator Quick Action. Convert them every week, or want headings and paragraphs rebuilt for you? Koi's Convert does it in one drag and the same wheel compresses, merges and splits PDFs. Going the other way? See Word to PDF on a Mac.

Preview, Automator and Pages are free. Koi has no free plan: Pro is $20 a month, or $192 a year, after a 3-day free trial that needs a card. Lifetime is paid once, from $59. The Shift wheel uses no AI, so it never counts against Koi's usage. See the plans.