Depending on the version of Adobe you are using, you can save PDFs in text format. There is an option on the File menu to save as text, and you will end up with a file with .txt extension. All formatting will be lost, but you will have all the text. You can then open the .txt file in Word and save it as a Word document.

 

Tables will also come out as text. If the tables are complex, they will be difficult to recreate. In that case, I would do a screen shot of the tables and cut and paste them into the Word document.

 

There are programs out there that convert PDF to Word, but I have not found one yet that does a good job of converting everything as is, and they can be expensive.

 

If the PDF is not copy protected, you can select all the text in the document and copy and paste it into a Word document. Again, tables will be difficult to copy.

 

This is something I have done many times. Not a fun thing to do, but if all you want is the text, and don't care about the formatting, you will be able to get it in one of these ways. Of course, there may be other ways and software I am not familiar with, and always open to learning about new ways to do this as it comes up a lot in my work.

 

Going backwards from PDF to text is usually somewhat messy, but not impossible. One last-ditch but sure-fire method is to print out the document, and scan it back in using a character recognition program.  The latest versions of Microsoft Office include that capability, and most scanners and multi-function computers come with a program to do that as well.

 

There are also programs that can take a PDF file and edit it, and output the edited version in a variety of formats.  Some of the best non-Adobe PDF programs are from a company called software995—because most of their programs are $9.95!  Not only that, but they allow unlimited use of the full program before you pay for it—in the unregistered version, there are just a few seconds of ads to see before the program starts.

 

The relevant program is called pdfEdit995.