Edit PDF documents in Word to save time

Did you know that you can edit PDF documents in Microsoft Word? Simply open a PDF document in Word. You will get a popup message in Word that gives a warning that it may take a while and the resulting document may not be a perfect match to the PDF document. In our experience, unless you have a lot of graphics, the resulting Word document will be a close match.

Once Word has converted the PDF into Word format, you can edit it as needed. You can then save the document as a Word file or as a PDF document again.

This PDF-editing feature is available in Word for Microsoft 365, Word 2019, Word 2016, and Word 2013.

Here is a quick video that illustrates how to edit a PDF in Word.

— Wendy Tietz, CPA, CGMA, Ph.D., is a professor of accounting at Kent State University in Kent. Ohio; Jennifer Cainas, CPA, DBA, is an instructor of accountancy at the University of South Florida in Tampa; and Tracie Miller-Nobles, CPA, is an associate professor of accounting at Austin Community College in Austin, Texas. See their site AccountingIsAnalytics.com for resources they have developed for teaching data analytics in introductory accounting. To comment on this article or to suggest an idea for another article, contact senior editor Courtney Vien at Courtney.Vien@aicpa-cima.com.