There are plenty of occasions where I create a .pdf via either my printer (PDF reDirect) or Read Now or PrintFriendly. I'm not sure that this type of .pdf is "really" a pdf file. As such, the conversion process is not as elegant and complete as it would be with a .pdf created, say, with an actual Adobe app.

I've used PDFZilla (earlier versions) and it's done a fair job, but again, I think, at least for me, it may have something to do with the way I create these faux pdf files.

I found this very useful, thankyou. This is much better then the worthless old versions - They hardly worked!

I hope other people use this version, instead of forking out for the terrible old versions what don't work with the new PDF Coding stragey's. Thank-you.

- John Blurk

PDFZilla 1.2 was deleted by Kaspersky AntiVirus, they said it was a Trojan. If your shortcut for the program doesn't work anymore, that's what happened to the program. The main .exe file is gone, deleted.

Good!

Hi,

If you don't like spaces in your documents, this program will remove them for you - See for yourself in the following hyperlinks:

This was the Original Input and this is the Output of PDFZilla

Also, as you can see, the format was changed as was the background color - - Why, it was white ???

If the links don't work for you, the original is at Kastle.org/PDFZillaInput.jpg and the output is here Kastle.org/PDFZillaOutput.jpg

Nick. . .

Worked for a while, then asked me for the registration number, put it in and then it started again.

Little while later the box comes up again and I go through the same process but this time the box won't disappear. Oh well, that's what you get for free right?

At least I got some documents converted to Word.

For convertor pdf to HTML i found a free and good software:Some pdf to html convertor.

It appears that you may be able to change the output directory in the SETUP.INI file

For#118.If you enter at :pdf password recovery,there are 2 programs,one:
PDF password cracker enterprize edition ,my antivirus blocked and say that is riskware:PSWTool.Win32.PdfCracker.

Thank#118 Ostrov for link .I try this and romanian PDF text was corect converted in .doc(no merge words),so i will use it.Remain pdf to Html to find.

I love my older copy of PDFZilla and it is the best pdf converter that I have downloaded from GAOTD. I like being able to convert 20 or 30 pdf files at a time, with pictures or drawings included. I am not going to risk another download and messing around with registration which may or may not work. It is a great giveaway however.

installed but the program wouldn't run. Error: "This application has failed to start because MSVBVM60.DLL was not found. Re-installing the application may fix this problem." I re-installed it twice but it still didn't work. This sounds like a useful program though. What a pity :(

Wow, I downloaded the free version a week or so ago and now I get the full version free! Thanks GAOTD!

cannot register in vista ultimate. i used the key in the text document and restart the software. but nothing happen. the software remains unregistered.

I tested version 1.0 'way back when; it did not pass muster.
My results were marginally better this time, but still not up to snuff.
Details:
The Test Cases:
I have four PDF files I use for my test. All four display under Adobe Reader just as they should.
Two were made ages ago with FrameMaker, saved in PostScript, then converted to PDF by GhostScript. One of these (#1) uses special characters and has characters placed in an awkward way for artistic effect, the other (#2) has some phrases tilted at an angle, and some lines and strikethroughs.
The other two are my resume, created and exported to PDF by Open Office Writer. Both use some special fonts. One (#3) has an added graphic, the other (#4) does not.

Results.
User-Interface: The Browser for an output file always starts at the same place, even when a path was specified in a previous conversion. I would prefer if it started where the previous conversion's path is, since the next is likely to be near to it. But that's a relatively minor annoyance. The real proof is in the conversion...

Conversion to:
HTML
The main file that is produced to load the rest as frames has a flaw in all cases. In the element, the SRC attribute, pointing to a file, says: "C:\[rest of path]" which causes a loading error: "Protocol (c) is not recognized". Editing -- by hand -- to make it read: "file:\\\C:\[rest of path]" corrects this. The programmer should take note. Also, as #54 noted, it would be a lot cleaner to simply use a relative path; that would also allow the directory to be moved.
That out of the way...
#1 Misses the special characters but gets the awkwardly-placed characters right. It strangely misses some spaces, though.
#2 Misses the tilted phrases, lines and strikethroughs. After FireFox loads it, something gets severely messed up and it crashes the Windows Explorer (not the browser, the one associated with the filesystem). Yikes!
#3 and #4 come out totally garbled. Text replaced by odd special-characters. Different from the ones under version 1.0, but unreadable nonetheless.
Grade: D-

MS - TuWord:
Text is mostly all there. Special characters and tilts are lost, as are most formatting attributes. There are overlapping text boxes and other uglinesses too hideous and numerous to list. Writeable, perhaps, but it will be a lot of work getting the output to resemble the input.
Grade: C-

TIFF
Viewed under PhotoImpression Photo Viewer. #2 #3 and #4 displayed correctly. #1 missed the special characters but got the awkwardly-placed characters and all the spaces right. Unfortunately, this is not an edit-able format, which was part of the whole idea.
Grade: B

RTF
#1: Text is there but scrambled.
#2: Most of the text is missing, the rest is scrambled
#3: Text is there, formatting is missing or scrambled. Graphic is placed at end instead of where it belongs.
#4: Same as #3 except no graphic.
Grade: D+

FLASH
All four displayed correctly under FireFox. Again, unfortunately, this is not an edit-able format.
Grade: B+/

I didn't bother with the other formats. Adobe Reader or GhostScript (gsview) already handle those adequately.

Overall impression: Unless your PDFs are simple, this is a time waster. Developer still has a lot of work to do...

I have used PDFZilla's freeware apps for quite a while and they have proven useful. So I look forward to putting PDFZilla itself to the test. If it performs as well as the freeware offerings by this company have performed, PDFZilla will definitely be a thumbs up winner IMO!!!

It works O.K., but the formatting is messed up on even a basic pdf. Also, it wants to inject a keystroke logger into my computer everytime I run it. Same as the last pdf converter I downloaded from giveawayoftheday 2 or 3 months ago.

What I converted to Word came through with a lot of rubbish - I have Windows XP SP3.

I wanted to extract text from a PDF to manipulate it in Excel. This does that job nicely.

My system is windows xp pro service pack 3 installed and registered fine. The first PDF I converted was a magazine PDF I thought it did a great job because it seemed very fast and easy. The PDF was 13.6MB and after the conversion the size ballooned up to 1GB, Ekkk. I converted the file over to a word document, I opened up the file and all I got was a series of thumbnail pics that you couldn't read. I think its a great idea its just the follow through may not be that great. Ya color me not impressed I am going to uninstall it, thumbs down for me. I would run more test but truth be told I dont have that many PDF files on my computer.

I’m disappointed with the results and I’d like to find a better alternative. Does anyone have any experience of pdf2word or anything that’s better?

Very useful software.
Thanks for the give away.
Thank you.
Regards,
Sunil.

The "boxes" this program uses in Word docs are not "Text Boxes" they are "Frames". There is a functional difference. I hope the program developers get rid of them. I strongly suspect that the file size bloat in DOC format is due to excessive use of text box per line to maintain original line layout.

Actually, I would like to see an option, when creating DOC format, that concentrates on the text not the layout. Either text only, or text maintaining paragraphs with graphics inserted between paragraphs.

This is absolutely golden. The .swf conversion is close to perfect. You can basically convert anything to .PDF (powerpoint slides anyone) with free tools first and from that to flash with this software. Thanks!

JT #10, If you use Frontpage for your website, it has a batch method of changing links. You can also use Edit, replace in most any editable program.

#45 CTRL C to copy, CTRL X to cut and CTRL V to paste. C for Copy, X for scissors, and V for down as in paste down (CTRL P is print.)

#66 as another mentioned, JT I think, conversion is for the ability to edit the document without losing the formatting or buying the expensive Adobe Acrobat Pro. Adobe has an online capability for editing PDF now, it may be cheaper, haven't checked it out that far.

As for this program, I don't think so, from comments too many problems to offset convenience of having multiple conversion possibilities in one program. Office 2007 now converts to PDF, and I have the other methods of converting from PDF's. Screen captures are the best for uneditable document to picture. Of course links will not work. Once you use PDF2Word, you can save as a webpage in HTML or MHT. As in most cases internal links will need converting to work on the web, or you can publish using Frontpage or CuteHTML and others and it will convert them for you. I haven't used Word as a publisher, but it should also.

Mmm - I can understand wanting to convert standard pdf files without copyright issues but isn't it actually illegal to convert password protected pdfs if you don't have permission to do so?

Installed fine with Windows XP SP2. Ran fine - registration easy. Opened .PDF successfully - some parts jumbled around/overlapping but with all of the mini text boxes, it'd be fairly easy to edit it as needed or copy/paste a section needed.

Overall, this worked pretty well!

Not too bad. If you don't like this one give a try to free alternative
at http://www.hellopdf.com/ (conversion to Word only).

I don't use MS Word, only open Office. This PDFZilla worked okay for simple files.

:-(
I've been interested in this program before, but could never get it free. So I really freaked when I could get V1.2 free!

Trivial to install and register.

Tested on one of my scientific articles -- looked good other than the text font and no italics. Then when I started to read, I discovered that each paragraph had been converted to a single word ... NO SPACES!! Sigh. Some simple pdfs convert reasonably, but I wanted this for more complex documents.

Convert to text did a reasonable job of keeping the spaces between words, but convert to .html didn't work well and when I directly opened a page the layout was almost good, but images didn't load and the spaces between words was gone again.

So, thumbs down for now, but hey, maybe V2 will be much better??

This software is just what I was looking for. Thanks!

I forget to thank for this software.Thank you very much and hope that it wil be more good at next versions.

Connecting to Giveawayoftheday. Checking key availability...


Failed to connect. Please try again later.

Ben getting this for 2 hours.

Up at verypdf.com it is a free(non comercial)soft named:Text to PDF converter.Have posibility to put password at your result in pdf and it is with drag and ...At menu you can put sign at:Open Resultat file automatically and if you have instaled:PDF-XChange Viewer free,easy and fast you will see result of your conversion.With software from HP print Deskjet F2200 series you can scan and change in txt and add to another text.Next change to pdf.You can merge pdf files with open source:Pdfsam(need to have before instaled dotnet3,5(net framework from site Microsoft).A very good soft with drag and drop image to convert to pdf(only for 12 images i believe)(is free)you can put together in a pdf document is:Graphics2PDF and view more beauty with PDF-XChange Viewer.

Wow! I installed this on a computer using Vista Home Premium and it was absolutely amazing! I converted a 458 page cookbook in about ten seconds and I can not find any errors in the resulting Word document. Thanks so much, GOTD!!

WindowsME version is very buggy, they should remove it from the available target systems list!

Very good software. Works well. But if by any chance I would like to re-install this program after GAOTD time expires, How? can anybody tell me.

Maybe yes, maybe no.

Vista Business SP2.

Installed with minor issues. For person who had problem with install going directly to activate I had similar problem with user level ID, you HAVE to install as Administrator.

At first it abended when I tried to register. Had to turn off DEP to get register to work.

Conversion to Word: I tried several pdfs with mixed results.
- The one line per text box has to end. I suspect that it is a result of them trying to maintain exact same line distribution.

- the effort to exactly recreate original layout led to textboxes being placed overlapping so text that had wrapped to next line in one overlapped with next line

- I suspect that the use of so many text boxes contributes to the bloated output file sizes.

- I suggest they provide an option to use 1 text box per paragraph. It would make subsequent editing easier. The intent of the option would be along the lines of "Do you want to recreate the original layout or do you just want to extract the text maintaining paragraph breaks only" another option could be "Do you want to ignore headers/footers"

- It has problems with headers and footers, it doesn't recognize them as such, recreates them on each page

- noticed it had problems with white text in colored backgrounds, applies the white attribute to the text but does not provide a colored background. Text boxes do have ability to apply a color to the background, so that attribute should be turned on to approximate the original design. If no colored background, then don't apply the white attribute to the text.

- One doc it developed a stutter, ie
WWhhiittee PPaappeerr
It appears to be an effort to recreate a slightly heavier font, instead of applying bold attribute

- poor choice of fonts, it seems to really like SmSun. In some docs it was selecting a Serif font in place of Sans Serif originals. I see that as a significant change in formatting, especially given the effort it takes to try and preserve/recreate other formatting elements

- it lost some graphic elements, left blank space for them but didn't include them.

- forgot to bold some text

- STRANGE selections for bullets, using "H"s?

- if there are formatting changes on a line, ie bold or italics, it creates separate text boxes for each change. Does not do a good job of sizing the textboxes, overlapping them and introducing large white spaces between words at the formatting change points.

It's been a couple of years now since I had to use a PDF extractor program. It pulls the content out reasonably well, but doesn't do so well on the text formatting and layout. It is "trying too hard" with the text boxes.

I'll keep it for now since I don't have another one installed on this 'new' PC, but I'll keep looking for a better one. Given it's quirky performance I would consider it more of a late beta version rather than a generally available (GA) one put out for sale.

This software works well with simple pdf files. I tried it on a complex one and some pictures did not get converted to the word document. Furthermore, the formatting was a little off. Overall, this software is not too bad.

The Cheapest, Fastest, Most Effective Way of Converting PDF files into Word or any other text format...

Copy and Paste...

This product works well. It delivers as promised.

Peace,
"Guide by the Ancestors"

Installed fine. Had to manually use the code provided in the "read me" file to register it. All good. Unfortunately, the conversion is not to a standard document. As stated above, it converts to a page with text boxes, many of them overlapping.

It does convert the file out of *.pdf and into a *.doc file, but not to a workable word document - unless you want to retype everything from the text boxes to the page. But then, why not just open a blank word document and start typing?

Thank you GOTD but this one gets only 1/2 of one thumb up (for a good idea but in theory only).

Installation on WinXP was easy.
Conversion is terrible, given that PDF file I had was an invoice with some formatting and few tables the program produced unusable doc, which I first tried to format manually with MS Word, but finally had to give up.
The HTML output was even worse, neither Firefox or IE could not display any meaningful contents.
I suppose this program *MAY* work with some very simple PDF files, but beyond that this looks like a joke.
The options/configurations (and the entire GUI for this matter) are very simplistic. I cannot imagine anyone would actually pay for this half-baked software. Are there some high school kids behind it?

I tested with hungarian characters, but ő and ű not supported in Word convert. :-(
No unicode support for this program?

YUCK!!!!
Converted 4 PDF's. Not one come over is an useable format.
Do not recommend

HTML did not work correctly, the .BMPs were dammaged but the other graphics were fine. Works great on Docs though, love it, thanks

Hello, folks and THANK YOU for offering this free gift and ALL the freebies!

I hate dealing with PDF for the usual reasons, not the least of which is the tedious, cumbersome (I read that above...perfect description) mode of operandi. So Im definitely going to give this a shot!

And to all the more informed than I am people who post on here pointing out positives and negatives and also recommending other software that has, in my case, shown me alternatives and, in many cases, wonderful additions to my laptop, THANK YOU TOO~!

You are doing a really GOOD thing, here, GOAD and I hope you are profiting at least a tiny bit from my posting your links on my personal and business sites :)

Thanking you, spreading the word, and also checking out your advertisers I hope will help YOU in some small way. :)

Best I recall this is my first post! I hope it expressed my gratitude and my very best wishes for this site to prosper!

Installed perfectly on Windows 7 RC1 (Build 7100).

Runs very fast and does exactly what advertised. Cheers

The good:

Install runs fine, easy interface.

The bad:

Can convert only ascii (i.e. English only). Everything else is unreadable. Even conversion to image is garbled.

This does not work for me and I have uninstalled it.

This is great for me becuase I have a lot of PDF books, and this will allow me to convert them to text files which can be read on my ipod :D THANKS AGAIN GAOTD For quality software! :D

Vista 32 won't let me run or register it, it stops working and closes.