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Can You Convert PDF Files and Images into Google Docs Without Losing Formatting?

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Posted by Iyke James . Posted on: at .

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Running a business on your phone, working remotely with colleagues, sharing live documents with people across the world. These activities wouldn’t be possible without the wonders of the cloud. Google Drive and its suite of products such as Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Forms have allowed people to be more creative, efficient, and explore new possibilities in both their professional and personal lives.

Unfortunately, there is one major file type that is difficult to utilize to its full potential on Google Drive, and that is PDF. There is the ability to convert a PDF to a Google Doc, but things can become messy. In this article, we’ll be looking at whether you can convert a PDF to Google Docs without losing formatting, and how to get the most out of editing PDF documents stored in your Google Drive.

What PDF capabilities does Google Drive possess?

Google Drive is a versatile tool and provides more functionality than a simple PDF viewer. After uploading a PDF into Google’s cloud storage you can:

  • Search and copy text – Despite now being a standard for PDF readers, you never used to be able to search and copy text in a PDF document. Google Drive employs Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology which converts text from images or handwritten text into machine-readable content. This is a huge deal as it saves having to manually scan a PDF document for a word or phrase.
  • Save a Google Doc as a PDF – If you want to convert a Google Doc to PDF, you can do this in a matter of seconds. With the document you are working in, simply go to File > Download > PDF document (.pdf). This will create a copy of your exact document in PDF format and save to your downloads. As you can see in the download section, there is also a chance to save the document in other formats, such as Open Document (.odt), plain text (.txt) or web page (.html).If you want to convert from Google Doc to PDF and store it in the cloud rather than on your device, go to File > Print > Destination > Save to Google Drive. And that’s all you need to do! You’ll instantly have turned your Google Doc into a PDF version ready to share with others!

convert and edit pdf

  • Annotate – This is handy if you are jointly working on a PDF contract or form in a remote office setting. Once you open the document you are able to leave any comments and highlight sections for others to see. These comments remain when you download the document, so they aren’t lost if you wish to send a static copy by email.

Can I edit a PDF in Google Docs?

This is unfortunately where Google falls down. A PDF’s content can be edited in Google Docs, but not the PDF itself. When you open a PDF in Google Drive you can search, copy, and annotate, as described above. However, you also have the option to Open with Google Docs. When you “open the PDF in Google Docs”, OCR technology is being used to recognize and copy the content from your PDF into a new Google Doc. If you have tried to do this before you will know there are two major problems:

  1. As it’s a copy, any changes you make in the Google Doc won’t occur in your PDF.
  2. Most of the formatting from your PDF won’t be retained. PDFs are complex documents that can include form fields, images, custom fonts, embedded videos, and other graphic content. What’s more, all this information is stored within the document itself, and simply inserting the PDF into a Google Doc means many elements won’t be supported or recognized.

What’s the solution?

If you can’t import a PDF to Google Docs to make changes, why not cut out the middleman and edit within the PDF? Luckily, Google Drive supports third-party apps, which means you don’t have to go from PDF to Google Docs and back again with mixed results.

Lumin PDF, one of the most complete PDF editors on the market, syncs directly with Google Drive, allowing users to alter PDFs stored in the cloud on an intuitive cross-platform app. Multiple people can work within a PDF at once, with changes showing up in real-time, making coworking simple.

How do you connect Lumin PDF to Google Drive?

On Lumin PDF’s website, there is a document called Lumin + Google Drive which shows you in 8 easy steps (with screenshots) how to connect Lumin PDF to Google Drive. From there, editing PDFs is just the start and the world (of PDF documents) is your oyster. There is the ability to compress PDF documents, add E-signatures, split and merge files, and utilize the suite of free customizable PDF templates and forms available on the Lumin website.

Edit PDFs in Google Drive the smart way

Trying to upload a PDF to Google Docs to edit is a mug’s game unless you have next to no formatting. Lumin allows users to work with PDF documents in Google Drive with ease.