• Damon Crider

Soar by Joan Bauer tells the powerful story of a heart transplant survivor who becomes an amazing baseball coach. It has page turning plots, well developed characters and lots of heartwarming humor. Twelve year old Jeremiah is the world’s biggest baseball fan. Convert your PDF file into editable word documents with the best PDF to Word converter. Preserve the PDF files' fonts, paragraphs, lists, tables, and columns in the Word output. You can then edit the word document, extract its contents and republish in PDF as a new document. You don't need to register, login or give us your contact information.

A free PDF to Word converter can save you hours of time and endless hassle. PDFs aren't designed for editing in mind, so if you need change or extract text or images, the easiest way is to convert it to a Word document, which you can then open with the office software of your choice.There are several free PDF to Word converters that can do the job, using different techniques to identify and extract images and text, while preserving the original formatting. They're not all the same though, and some application gives much more accurate results than others.We've put the best PDF to Word converters through their paces to decide which recreates the original document most faithfully. You can see the results of our tests on the left, and click the previews to zoom in.

Five-page limitis a brand new tool from the developer behind one of our favorite free office suites, WPS Office. It’s incredibly easy to use – just drag the file onto the software’s main screen and pick the export format (options include DOC, DOCX, and RTF) and click ‘Start’.Because it’s a desktop app, WPS PDF to Word Converter is noticeably faster than online tools, and can process files in batches. The free edition will convert PDFs up to five pages long, so if you want to convert larger documents you’ll need to divide it into chunks first using a tool like.

Alternatively, the premium version of WPS PDF to Word Converter costs $29.95/£22.95/AU$39.95, with no limit on pagination.The exported Word documents are very impressive – easily the best of all the PDF to Word converters we tested. Images were preserved and aligned correctly, text formatting was retained, and font styles and weights were accurately reproduced. WPS PDF to Word Converter is the best free PDF to Word converter. Formatting sometimes lostAs the name suggests, is a free PDF to Word converter uses optical character recognition to identify text in PDFs. This means it works with scanned documents as well as original files – essential if you want to convert and edit a printed handout from a lecture, for example.Free Online OCR can only convert one file at a time, up to 5GB in size. Select your PDF, pick a language, choose a format (Microsoft Word, Excel, or plain text), and then enter a Captcha to start the conversion.After a few seconds you’re provided with a link to download the converted file.

Unlike some web apps, there’s no need to provide an email address, then wait for the link to be delivered.In our tests, Free Online OCR did a great job of preserving our PDF’s formatting, presenting text in editable columns. We were particularly impressed that the image was formatted as a header and locked in place.The limitations of OCR were visible in a few places – text on colored backgrounds wasn’t always identified, and there were a few rogue tabs and line breaks – but it wouldn’t take much tweaking to get the Word document looking almost identical to the PDF. Free Online OCR is a very impressive free PDF to Word converter – we just wish it was available as a desktop app so we didn’t have to upload files one at a time. Only five conversions per monthThere are two versions of – a desktop app for Windows and an online version – but only the latter is free to use forever.You can upload multiple files, and there’s a good choice of import and export formats (including Word, PowerPoint and Excel), but there are some significant drawbacks. Unlike Free Online OCR, Nitro PDF to Word Converter emails your converted file to you, and each email address is limited to five file conversions per month – a pretty severe limit that severely restricts its usefulness.Text was maintained quite well in our converted document – including the keylines between columns, which was a pleasant surprise – but the main image didn’t survive the change of format. There were also some rogue spaces and line breaks when we used this free PDF to Word converter, though these wouldn’t take long to correct manually.

Three-page limitis a desktop app, which means it avoids the issues of slow upload and download speeds associated with online tools, and means you don’t have to trust your documents to a third party that might keep them cached.The trial edition of this free PDF to Word converter can only convert three pages – to convert more you’ll need to either upgrade to the paid version, or split your PDF using a tool like, then recombine the resulting Word documents.In our tests, UniPDF preserved the overall look of our magazine page, including images, but struggled with complex text formatting. Columns ran into one another, and in some cases the converted text was a dramatically different size to the original, making it tricky to adjust.

A few letters were also missing here and there, leaving us with quite an extensive cleanup job to get the Word document to a functional state. Take a look at our roundup of the best.

The ‘Thin Books’ series impresses with its aim of presenting key organisational and people development concepts in a brief, fluff-free and practical way which makes it a boon to the busy manager or consultant. Is no exception.The most widely-known tool for strategic planning is the SWOT analysis – which considers Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. As the authors point out, if an equal amount of time is spent on each, the effort of thinking about negatives (weaknesses and threats) tends to cancel out any forward momentum, so participants can end up armed with a plan but with their spirits drained.The SOAR model, by contrast, focuses on Strengths, Opportunities, Aspirations and Results. Weaknesses and threats are not ignored, but reframed to become exciting opportunities.

Research (for example by the Gallup organisation, showcased in Buckingham and Clifton’s excellent ) shows that focusing on strengths produces greater improvements in performance at the personal and organisational level than focusing on weaknesses. The SOAR model, which looks to the future as well as taking an inventory of the current situation, is dynamic rather than static, and encourages action rather than analysis.Another feature of SOAR which makes it more suited to today’s increasingly fluid market conditions is its emphasis on inclusiveness, aiming to involve staff at every level as well as customers, suppliers and other stakeholders. This gives the resulting strategy the depth, richness and above all the ‘reality check’ of multiple viewpoints, in contrast to the top-down strategic planning that usually characterises SWOT (to be fair, SWOT is not inherently top-down, but that is the way it has traditionally turned out in practice).The SOAR model evolved from Appreciative Inquiry (AI) and shares its philosophy. When time is limited, the authors suggest using a ‘quick SOAR’ format lasting a half-day or a day. For longer-term projects, they introduce the ‘5-I’ model (Initiate, Inquire, Imagine, Innovate, Inspire to Implement) – an alternative to the standard 5-D AI model.In the book’s main case study, a US healthcare company successfully uses the 5-I process incorporating SOAR to develop their strategy with encouraging results. There are also eight shorter ‘snapshots’ giving examples of how different organisations, from manufacturers to school boards, have used SOAR to restructure, make mergers work, respond to crises and become more proactive.In short –!

Damon Crider

In only 48 pages it gives you a model for developing strategy (SOAR), another model for implementing Appreciative Inquiry projects (5-I), and numerous examples of how to use it. SOAR is also a great model for life coaching and determining one’s own direction. Starts 14 July 2019Are you a facilitator, coach, change agent or business owner? Learn everything you need to get started with Appreciative Inquiry on the with Andy Smith – in an interactive ‘live’ course you can take wherever you are in the world!Small group training with limited places so act now!“A clear and comprehensive course on Appreciative Inquiry expertly delivered. The mix of theory, explanation and interactive exercises provides a comprehensive learning experience enlivened by Andy’s experience and enthusiasm. I now have a clear understanding of how to facilitate AI learning and the confidence to do so. “– Jefferson Cann, Leadership Performance Coach and Consultant.