Exporting comments to a Word document (Windows) from Acrobat

If you’re working with a tagged Adobe® PDF version of a Word document generated using the Word PDFMaker, you can have your comments exported directly from the PDF document back into the original document and make the edits automatically.

Requirements

To complete this article, you will need the following software:

Adobe Acrobat 8

• Try
• Buy (Professional)
• Buy (Standard)

Prerequisite knowledge:

Basic knowledge of working with commenting in Acrobat

Exporting comments to a Word document

To export comments to a Word document:

1. From the Comment & Markup task button pop-up menu, choose Export Comments to Word. Or, choose Comments > Export > Comments to Word. Microsoft Word opens, and a dialog describes the process.
2. Click OK to close the description dialog and start the import process. The Import Comments from Adobe Acrobat dialog opens. Specify the PDF and Word documents in the dialog, and select the comment import options, described in the sidebar “Choosing Which Comments to Export”.
3. Click Continue. Acrobat processes the comments, adds them to the Word document, and displays the Successful Import dialog (Figure 1). The dialog summarizes the activity and describes how text edits can be integrated. Click Integrate Text Edits to start the process.

    

   

   Figure 1: Acrobat tells you when it has finished importing the comments into the document.

4. The Adobe Acrobat Comments dialog opens, displaying the number of comments available for converting. The dialog identifies the first comment in the document and displays the action. Click Apply to make the edit. The text is modified in the Word document (using colored or underlined text if changes are being tracked).
5. Click Next in the Adobe Acrobat Comments dialog to continue with the next edit; repeat until you’ve finished all the edits. If you don’t want to use the edit, click Discard.
6. You’ll see the Text Integration Summary dialog when all the comments are processed (Figure 2). After you’ve reviewed the summary, click Done. Depending on the options you chose in the Import Comments from Adobe Acrobat dialog (described in step 2) you may have instructions for cleaning up the document, such as accepting changes if you have the tracking feature active, or deleting comment bubbles.

    

   

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   Figure 2: The comments are listed in a summary that explains how they have been managed.

7. Check the document. You’ll see that the edits are applied and that basic note comments are attached to the document as well. Save the corrected Word document.

Choosing which comments to export

You can choose certain groups of comments to export in the Import Comments from Adobe Acrobat dialog. First decide how much you want to edit the Word document, and then choose a type of export accordingly.

• If you have set up a personal commenting system using checkmarks and want to import only those comments marked with checkmarks, you can select the option “All Comments with Checkmarks under Choose Comment Types to Import.”
• If you are editing the document’s content using the text edit tools, select the “Text Edits only: Insertions, Deletions, and Replaces” option. That way, only the comments pertaining to the document’s content and structure are transferred.
• Click the “Turn Track Changes On Before Importing Comments” option if you are involved in an editing or review process.
• Often you develop commenting systems, particularly in large organizations. Acrobat lets you design a custom set of comment-conversion options. Choose Custom Set and then filter the comments you want to export to Word. The filter can be based on the author, status, or checkmark.

Is that confirmed?

Sometimes the placement of text edit comments can’t be confirmed in a source Word document; this occurs when Acrobat can’t precisely decipher the structure of the source document’s tags. Unconfirmed placements are available in a list from the Successful Import dialog.

Click the View List button to see a list of the comments that have unconfirmed placements. On the document you see comments added where Acrobat thinks the comment belongs. You can transfer the information from these comments to the document and delete the Word comments.

Back and forth

Either you can work from Acrobat and export the comments using the Comment menu’s commands, or you can work from Word and import the comments using the commands on the Acrobat Comments menu. Which is better? Your choice depends on where you are in a particular workflow. If you have finished working with a group of comments, work from within Acrobat; if you have the source document open in Word, work from within Word.

Where to go from here

For more information about commenting in Acrobat 8, check out these other great tutorials:

• Working with the Comments List in Acrobat 8, by Donna Baker
• Organizing comments in Acrobat 8, by Donna Baker
• Tracking a review in Acrobat 8, by Donna Baker

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