Cannot remove sections breaks in pdf converted to word doc on macbook

[Freya5E99]

Please bear with me - I'm old and not too tech savvy.  I downloaded/saved a form on my Mac and converted the pdf to word.  I was able to make changes but I cannot remove section breaks.  I've tried everything suggested on line.  Thanks!

[Amal.]

Hi Freya,

Hope you are doing well and sorry for the trouble. As described you have converted PDF to Word and want to remove the section breaks.

Please try the steps provided in the Microsoft support page https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/delete-a-section-break-1e12f200-7215-4688-a55a-5130f383dc... and see if that works for you.

Additional Information: You may also refer to the similar discussions listed below:

- https://community.adobe.com/t5/acrobat/removing-page-breaks/td-p/9153664

- https://answers.acrobatusers.com/how-I-remove-page-breaks-q225492.aspx

- https://answers.acrobatusers.com/Remove-Page-Breaks-q36920.aspx

Hope this information will help

Regards

Amal

[Asheley26542996kwbe]

Amal. This does not work. Is there another way to delete a section break in a word document that was converted from pdf?

[AdAcrobFan1]

Hi Freya! good news is being tech savy is not important when using adobe PDF becuase even very expericened coders will find a very hard time converting simple documents into microsoft applications.  Unfortunatley we will have to wait for the hard working Adobe team to get to this issue.  The good news is their stock price is on pace to hit an all time high in 2024!  So atleast the shareholders are happy.

- Just a fan

[Amal.]

Hi there

Hope you are doing well.

Please try the steps provided in the MS help page https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/delete-a-section-break-1e12f200-7215-4688-a55a-5130f383dc... and see if that works.

~Amal

[rc90210]

Hi Amal,

I came here too hoping for an answer. The issue of Word and PDF documents created by Acrobat's export to RTF / Word feature has persisted for over a decade. 

The Microsoft Support page you referred AdAcrobFan1 to provides instructions for removing 1 section break at a time and points out that removing a section break will apply the document formatting following the (removed) section break to the document text to the section of text before the (removed) section break. 

Given Acrobat inserts a section break on each and every page it creates using the Export PDF to Doc/ RTF tools,  advising customers who are frustrated with Acrobat's long standing bugs / poor design (which this issue is clearly an example of) to remove section breaks one at a time is not remotely helpful. 

If Adobe actually cared about the experience and productivity of the people who use Acrobat / Acrobat Pro it would understand that the predominant reason people want to export a PDF to Word format is so they can edit the document - idseally retaining paragraph numbering and paragraph item / text indending and not so that they end up with a Word doc that (poorly) replicates the page setup and formatting of the original PDF. 

If Adobe Acrobat was developed and maintained so that it met the productivity needs of its customers:  

1) It would not export PDF documents to unusable "doc" format word documents that employ text boses for text in the main body of the document;and 

2) It would provide users with the option to export to RTF or Word doc without the use of page or section breaks - even if that results in text flowing to a subsequent page instead of remaining on the original page per the original PDF. 

3) When copying text (with or without the "retain formatting" option) It would not insert a paragraph character at the end of each line of text copied)

Given Adobe is also the developer of Postscript - the defacto standard for desktop publishing - it beggars belief how these issues can persist for decades and that Adobe can provide such unhelpful and essentially "useless" advice. You may as well advise that the customer retype the document from start, or advise the customer that they try a competitors product such as Google Docs or FoxIt. 

Do you not agree?

[rc90210]

Following on, I meant to refer to FreyaSE99's original question and not AdAcobFan1's saracastic post (given the nature of my comment, the irony of that statement is not lost on me, albiet my comment is constructive rather than trolling).  

I can suggest a work around that worded somewhat, but still required a lot of tidying up: 

1. Export PDF to HTML

2. Open the resulting HTML file in Word

3. Save the doc as a "docx" or whatever format you prefer. 

4. Review the document and fix all the formatting and style issues that have resulted - auto-numbering (inconsistent aut-numbering schemes, hard coded paragraph and sub- para numbers/ letters, substaitution of one auto-numbering scheme for another - e.g. sub-paragraphs originally using (a), (b), (c) etc scheme are now numbers (1), (2), (3), etc or roman numerals,  left margin justification, bizare indenting changes - including negative indentation / justification outside the left left hand edge of the page, etc. 

Also, export to plain text may be suitable for some people's needs. No formatting information is retained, but at least the text doesn't have a carriage return / new paragraph character inserted at the end of every single row of text. (NB Export to Accessable Text is a waste of time - this inserts a new line at the end of every row of text.)

[Amal.]

Hi there

Hope you are doing well.

If you have Acrobat Pro, please try to auto tag the PDF file as described in the help page https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/using/creating-accessible-pdfs.html once done, try to convert the PDF to Word and check if that helps.

Make sure you have the Acrobat updated to the recent version 23.08.20555 from the help meu > check for updates and reboot the computer.

~Amal

[Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com]

A lot of the junk formatting left in the RTF file can be searched for / replaced in Word itself.

This screen capture shows a S/R to find Section breaks and replace with nothing.

You can even set this up as a Word macro and get the junk removed in a couple of seconds.

Hope this helps. But there really isn't anything better than Adobe doing a better job with Acrobat's export/save as utility.