Bug 165414 - PDF to OOXML .DOCX conversion
Summary: PDF to OOXML .DOCX conversion
Status: RESOLVED INSUFFICIENTDATA
Alias: None
Product: LibreOffice
Classification: Unclassified
Component: filters and storage (show other bugs)
Version:
(earliest affected)
24.2.7.2 release
Hardware: x86-64 (AMD64) Linux (All)
: medium enhancement
Assignee: Not Assigned
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords: filter:pdf
Depends on:
Blocks: PDF-Import-Writer
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Reported: 2025-02-24 07:47 UTC by M Shubham Achary
Modified: 2025-12-26 03:21 UTC (History)
2 users (show)

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Crash report or crash signature:


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Description M Shubham Achary 2025-02-24 07:47:14 UTC
Description:
So basically LibreOffice is one my favorite tools to be use, mostly Primary after ms-office issues arrive, My main issue is I cannot be able to convert my pdf file to Docx, for which i need to use a browser based 3rd party one, also Dark mode is still missing, In case I can help you add both of it, This will be a cherry on the cake. Hope you understand as this LibreOffice is a daily part of my work , a necessary tool to get my work done without any hesitation on linux, and doesn't need to use web based ms-365 . Hope you would fixed it, or it will be my honor to fix this issue

Steps to Reproduce:
1.Open the LibreOffice
2.Choose a PDF file 
3.And when try saving , it doesn't have DOCX conversion or export, Plus No dark mode

Actual Results:
PDF file only can be converted to other files , which is not so necessary , but docx works all along and supported wide range of computing devices

Expected Results:
I tried to search for dark mode, but not happy,  wanted this feature, with some little color correction on UI


Reproducible: Couldn't Reproduce


User Profile Reset: Yes

Additional Info:
UI needs to be fixed, with a good Dark mode option, for using at night, a little color options like can we say as a ambient colors , soothing colors, not a white but not completely black , somewhere around gray, you guys better understand this
Comment 1 Xisco Faulí 2025-02-24 10:04:54 UTC
Thank you for reporting the bug.
it seems you're using an old version of LibreOffice.
Could you please try to reproduce it with the latest version of LibreOffice from https://www.libreoffice.org/download/libreoffice-fresh/ ?
I have set the bug's status to 'NEEDINFO'. Please change it back to 'UNCONFIRMED' if the bug is still present in the latest version.
Comment 2 V Stuart Foote 2025-02-25 14:42:10 UTC
LibreOffice provides a os/DE responsive Light/Dark color response. And at 25.2.1 Application color themes that also respond to os/DE color scheme (or can override it). Test with a more current release, or master against 25.8

As to handling PDF conversion to OOXML, LibreOffice uses external poppler project filter libs to parse PDF objects including text snippets and render each as ODF drawing objects onto document pages.  The original syntax and lexical sense of source documents are not encoded into the PDF so those details *are not present* in the resulting ODF documents LibreOffice produces.

Working with the LibreOffice UI you can combine those imported text snippets manually and recreate a single Draw text shape holding a sentence or paragraph of text.  An enhancement requested in bug 32249 seeks to improve such work flows to heuristically recapture more of the lexical syntax of a document. But that remains to be achieved.

Filters for Draw (the default), for Writer and for Impress use the same poppler based parsing filters but each writes out the same draw shape objects to LibreOffice document canvas.

On filter export to external OOXML format of MS Word .DOCX the draw shape objects will be written out as draw shapes. Not OOXML text streams and graphics. So the fidelity to original document or the PDF rendering can be pretty poor. Even if "round tripped" and opened back into LibreOffice Writer!

Point is, there are better tools that LibreOffice for doing such conversion. LibreOffice is limited to primarily supporting its native ODF formats. It is not a PDF editor, nor does it provide an efficient means of conversion to OOXML.
Comment 3 Eyal Rozenberg 2025-03-21 21:37:07 UTC
If OP wants a DOCX, they should be using the Writer import filter. It's not clear from the initial comment whether M Shubham Achary actually opened the PDF in Writer or not (if he hasn't that would explain why he's not getting a DOCX output option).
Comment 4 V Stuart Foote 2025-03-22 11:49:43 UTC
(In reply to Eyal Rozenberg from comment #3)
> If OP wants a DOCX, they should be using the Writer import filter. It's not
> clear from the initial comment whether M Shubham Achary actually opened the
> PDF in Writer or not (if he hasn't that would explain why he's not getting a
> DOCX output option).

Good point!

In your running instance of LibreOffice opening filter (the normal os/DE file manager) look for the filter format 'PDF - Portable Document Format (Writer) (*.pdf).' 

Rather than the default 'PDF - Portable Document Format (Draw) (*.pdf)'

The result of the filter import is a bit less robust for the PDF stream content, but it opens up additional export/save-as formats coming back out of LibreOffice, including an OOXML .docx document.
Comment 5 QA Administrators 2025-11-25 15:24:37 UTC Comment hidden (obsolete)
Comment 6 QA Administrators 2025-12-26 03:21:29 UTC
Dear M Shubham Achary,

Please read this message in its entirety before proceeding.

Your bug report is being closed as INSUFFICIENTDATA due to inactivity and
a lack of information which is needed in order to accurately
reproduce and confirm the problem. We encourage you to retest
your bug against the latest release. If the issue is still
present in the latest stable release, we need the following
information (please ignore any that you've already provided):

a) Provide details of your system including your operating
   system and the latest version of LibreOffice that you have
   confirmed the bug to be present

b) Provide easy to reproduce steps – the simpler the better

c) Provide any test case(s) which will help us confirm the problem

d) Provide screenshots of the problem if you think it might help

e) Read all comments and provide any requested information

Once all of this is done, please set the bug back to UNCONFIRMED
and we will attempt to reproduce the issue. Please do not:

a) respond via email 

b) update the version field in the bug or any of the other details
   on the top section of our bug tracker

Warm Regards,
QA Team

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