Pdf Converting . Microsoft Word is a word processing program. PDF is a popular file format for presenting documents. The file format typically used by Word uses a .doc extension. That sort of file is easily editable in Word. The PDF file format is extremely competent with regard to what it can present and the extent of its support for reading (without having to buy anything). However, it does not lend itself easily to editing. A Word .doc file can be converted to .pdf. Indeed, when I need to redistribute a formatted document which I received in .doc format, I do that conversion because most people have a PDF reader program and not everybody has the proprietary Word program. (Actually, I do it using the free and open-source LibreOffice program, as I don’t have Word either.)
However, Word doesn't let me easily do a file conversion of .pdf, so I've just come to the conclusion that PDF is the proper way to store a document containing text in a file that can be accessed by the reader app. If I want to use an application to view or edit the PDF document, I must go to my word processor. So, if I need to view the PDF in a spreadsheet application, the PDF must be stored in a spreadsheet application. But the file format is very versatile, it would be possible to use Word (and its free cousin, MS Office, which has .doc as a supported extension name) to view a PDF without having to do a separate conversion. The best application to use for working with PDF files is called Acrobat Reader (or Acrobat to make it simple to spell and pronounce).