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social_Phoenix4830
Participant
August 13, 2026
Answered

When converting from pdf to word, I have a column of lines that sometimes converts to plain lines, but other times convert to multiple underscore in the same document.

  • August 13, 2026
  • 2 replies
  • 39 views

I have a document that I want to convert from pdf to word. The document is very long, over 1,000 pages. I don’t know if this has any thing to do with the issue but when I attampt to convert the document, I have a column on the right side that consists of lines. When the conversion takes place, most of the time the lines come out correctly, but sometimes the lines come out as multiple underscores which is incorrect.

How can I convert this document and have it consistently convert correctly with just blank lines.

I have attached a picture of an excerpt with yellow near the correctly converted lines and green where the lines were converted incorrectdly./

Thanks in advance.

    Correct answer Amal Jaiswal

    ​Hi @social_Phoenix4830 ,

    Hope you are doing well, and thanks for reaching out. We are sorry for the trouble you are experiencing.


    ++ Adding to the discussion

    That inconsistent line/underscore issue usually comes down to how those specific lines were built into the original PDF rather than anything random on Acrobat's end. A couple of things would help narrow it down:

    • Are you converting with the desktop Acrobat app (File > Export To > Word) or the online converter?

    • When you export, is "Retain Flowing Text" or "Retain Page Layout" selected in the export settings?

    • Was this 1,000+ page PDF built as one continuous file, or stitched together from multiple sources (e.g., some pages scanned, some created digitally)?

    Here are a few things worth trying in the meantime:

    1. Check your export settings. Open the PDF, go to Menu > Export To > Microsoft Word > Word Document, go to Settings, and try switching between "Retain Flowing Text" and "Retain Page Layout." These two modes handle lines and spacing differently, so one may convert your column of lines more consistently than the other. For more information, please check the help article: https://adobe.ly/4gc4PCE

    2. Compare the "correct" and "incorrect" lines in the original PDF itself (not the Word output). If some of those lines were drawn as an actual vector line and others were built from a string of underscore characters meant to look like a line, Acrobat will treat them differently every time, which would explain why the same-looking element converts two different ways in one document.

    3. If any part of the document was scanned, run Recognize Text (Tools > Scan & OCR) on it before exporting. That can make Acrobat read those elements more consistently.

    4. Test on a small chunk first. Pull a 10-20 page range that includes one correct and one incorrect example, and re-export just that. It's much faster to check whether a setting change fixes it than re-running all 1,000+ pages each time.

     

    Let us know how it goes. 

    ~Amal


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    2 replies

    Randy Hagan
    Community Expert
    Randy HaganCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    August 13, 2026

    You may want to try exporting the copy from your PDF by using the File>Export To menu command and exporting it as a Rich Text Format file. RTF files generally respect the text formatting of PDF content without taking on the overhead of Word .doc/.docx files without extra complications.

     

    Hope this helps,

     

    Randy

    Amal Jaiswal
    Community Manager
    Amal JaiswalCommunity ManagerCorrect answer
    Community Manager
    August 13, 2026

    ​Hi @social_Phoenix4830 ,

    Hope you are doing well, and thanks for reaching out. We are sorry for the trouble you are experiencing.


    ++ Adding to the discussion

    That inconsistent line/underscore issue usually comes down to how those specific lines were built into the original PDF rather than anything random on Acrobat's end. A couple of things would help narrow it down:

    • Are you converting with the desktop Acrobat app (File > Export To > Word) or the online converter?

    • When you export, is "Retain Flowing Text" or "Retain Page Layout" selected in the export settings?

    • Was this 1,000+ page PDF built as one continuous file, or stitched together from multiple sources (e.g., some pages scanned, some created digitally)?

    Here are a few things worth trying in the meantime:

    1. Check your export settings. Open the PDF, go to Menu > Export To > Microsoft Word > Word Document, go to Settings, and try switching between "Retain Flowing Text" and "Retain Page Layout." These two modes handle lines and spacing differently, so one may convert your column of lines more consistently than the other. For more information, please check the help article: https://adobe.ly/4gc4PCE

    2. Compare the "correct" and "incorrect" lines in the original PDF itself (not the Word output). If some of those lines were drawn as an actual vector line and others were built from a string of underscore characters meant to look like a line, Acrobat will treat them differently every time, which would explain why the same-looking element converts two different ways in one document.

    3. If any part of the document was scanned, run Recognize Text (Tools > Scan & OCR) on it before exporting. That can make Acrobat read those elements more consistently.

    4. Test on a small chunk first. Pull a 10-20 page range that includes one correct and one incorrect example, and re-export just that. It's much faster to check whether a setting change fixes it than re-running all 1,000+ pages each time.

     

    Let us know how it goes. 

    ~Amal


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