How to Make PDFs Editable With Google Docs

Written by Jack Lloyd

Last Updated: February 7, 2022 Tested

This wikiHow teaches you how to convert a PDF file into an editable document by using Google Docs on a computer. Keep in mind that Google Docs will change the formatting of your PDF and remove all images; if preserving the formatting of the PDF is important, you cannot use Google Docs to edit it.

Steps

1
Understand which PDFs you can edit. PDFs that were created from text documents, such as former Word or Notepad files, can be opened as text files via Google Docs as long as they aren't password-protected.
- If the PDF file you want to edit either came from a photo (or series of photos) or has a password lock, you can't use Google Docs to edit the PDF.
2
Open Google Docs. Go to https://docs.google.com/ in your computer's web browser. This will open your Google Docs page if you're logged in.
- If you aren't logged in, click Go to Google Docs in the middle of the page, then enter your email address and password when prompted. If you're just prompted to log in without clicking anything, do so.
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3
Click the "Upload"
icon. It's a folder-shaped icon in the upper-right side of the page. A pop-up window will appear.
4
Click Upload. This option is at the top of the pop-up window.
5
Click Select a file from your computer. It's a blue button at the bottom of the window. Doing so opens a window from which you can select your PDF file.
6
Select your PDF file. Click the PDF file that you want to upload to Google Docs. If the PDF file is in a different folder than the one that opens, click the PDF's folder on the left side of the window first.
7
Click Open. It's in the bottom-right corner of the window. The PDF will begin uploading to Google Docs; once the PDF opens, you can proceed.
8
Select Open with. This option is at the top of the page. A drop-down menu will appear.
9
Click Google Docs. It's in the drop-down menu. Your PDF will open in Google Docs in a new tab, at which point you're free to edit its text as you please.^{[1]
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10
Edit your PDF as needed. You can change, add, or delete text like you would for a regular Google Docs document.
- Your PDF's formatting may change depending on the type of PDF it was before you opened it in Google Docs.
11
Download the edited PDF. Click File, select the Download as option in the drop-down menu, and click PDF Document in the resulting pop-out menu. This will convert the document back into a PDF and download it onto your computer.
- You can also click Microsoft Word instead of PDF if you want to save the PDF as a Word document in order to edit it later.

Community Q&A

Question

I have a .pdf doc in Google Drive and I want to edit it. How can I do that?

Community Answer

Convert that PDF file to a Word document to edit it. Copy all the content of the PDF file into a document, then save it as a new PDF for future use.
Question

I edited a PDF using DocHub. How do I save the edited file in Drive? It autosaves, but it's autosaved on DocHub and not in Drive.

Aditya.Prasad

Community Answer

Download the PDF as a .docx or a .pdf (docx recommended), and save it to Google Drive.

Warnings

While there are PDF-to-Word apps that you can install for Google Drive, none of them will allow you to convert the PDF's images and formatting into a Word document.

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You cannot convert a PDF to a document in Google Drive and Google Docs on mobile.^{[2]
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