Re: [libreoffice-users] LibreOffice Export to PDF

Try using an application called pdfgear to convert the pdf to an excel or
word document, whichever is appropriate. You'll probably have some
formatting issues... Good luck.



On Sat, Feb 7, 2026 at 9:10 AM Waltr <waltr@protonmail.ch> wrote:

> Peter,
>
> I consider this important, and have struggled with this in the past.
> There are a number of means to back convert from pdf.  Most will preserve
> the text, but many will not preserve the layout and formatting data.  A
> number of on line services will allow you to upload and convert to MSWord
> (.docx) and Libreoffice will read the .docx.  There are a few that work
> well, but we, as a rule do not use these services because of the widespread
> and rampant data harvesting from internet companies.  We believe there is
> substantial risk to sensitive personal and company information, so that
> leaves well vetted programs.
>
> I've had reasonable success at high res, ocr scanning but color rendition
> is lost or distorted.  Sourceforge and GIT offer a number of open source
> programs.
>
> There is an older thread
> https://ask.libreoffice.org/t/how-to-convert-pdf-to-odt/12268/8 that has
> some helpful suggestions, but many are upload to internet and translate
> downloads.
>
> I've used okular (KDE) on FreeBSD but formating loss is evident.
>
> This is something I think everyone would like, but I don't know enough
> about the .pdf internal formats to know if the {odt, docx, ...} is a loss
> free translation or if .pdf writers lose formating information in the .pdf
> generated file.  If anyone knows where the .pdf spec is found I can take a
> look at it and see how hard it would be.  I suspect, though that since it
> isn't done well in many cases, it is not an easy back conversion to do.
>
>
>
> Walt
>
>
> Sent from ProtonMail, encrypted email based in Switzerland.
>
> Sent with Proton Mail secure email.
>
> On Saturday, February 7th, 2026 at 07:12, Peter Hillier-Brook <
> phb@hbsys.plus.com> wrote:
>
> > Hello All,
> >
> > I recently created a file consisting of 1 page, containing a 4 column
> > table and exported it to PDF, foolishly failing to save the original in
> > ODT. Does anyone know of a means of reversing the export to reproduce
> > the original, editable ODT file?
> >
> > I know that this is not very important, but it would be nice if the
> > possibility existed, thus avoiding the tedium of re-typing the document.
> >
> > Regards.
> >
> > Peter HB
> >
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