PDF files are a very mixed blessing. They're excellent for distributing good-looking documents with all the layout and text properties you want. But they're problematic as well, especially if you need to extract text from them, or to edit PDF documents. There's simply no easy way to do either.

Solid Converter PDF, though, offers an excellent solution to the problem. It takes PDF files, and converts them to Word documents--and does a superb job of it. Typically, when you extract text from PDF files by copying and pasting into Word manually, it goes through arbitrary--and possibly unwanted--formatting changes. Paragraph returns appear at line endings, text goes missing, spaces emerge...the layout essentially blows up. That's not the case with Solid Converter PDF, though. It converts PDF documents to Word file, converting both text and layout perfectly. It properly converted half a dozen PDFs I threw at it, even those with complex layouts and many graphics.

It does more than that as well. You can also use Solid Converter PDF to convert PDF files to PowerPoint slides, to Excel spreadsheets, to text, and other output. You can also extract images from PDF files, edit PDF files, place watermarks on PDF files...the list can go on, but as you can see, it's an excellent all-around PDF-handling tool. The interface is straightforward and simple to use, so all of the program's power is in easy reach.

Note that the unregistered trial version of Solid Converter PDF places a watermark on output. If you want usable output, you'll have to register.

If you only very rarely need to convert PDF files to Word, the $80 price tag may put you off. But if you regularly need to do conversions, Solid Converter PDF is a good investment.

--Preston Gralla