can anyone tell me how to convert a pdf (adobe acrobat) file, into something that can be read by word or wordperfect? i've tried cut/paste but it just corrupted the data. any ideas? ta very much.

PDF files are image files, you need to use OCR software. There are freeware/shareware OCR packages if you want to try them.

If, however, you want a package designed for the job see here - PDF Magic (http://www.premier-programming.com/pdfmagic/pdf_magic.htm)

Using free Adobe Acrobat Reader 6 and Win XP Pro, I've been able to extract text and images from .pdf files by using the 'select text' and 'snapshot' tools respectively. Text I then edit by cutting it from the .txt file and pasting it into Word; I transfer images to PowerPoint, then save them as .jpg s which can be fiddled with using normal graphic software and then pasted into the Word document. But I don't know whether this would be feasible with Wordperfect?

Try pdftohtml (http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdftohtml/), converts a pdf file to a html file with pics and text seperated, or
ghostview, has a menupoint ' Text Extract'.

Many thanks for the helpful replies. OCR software that I already had solved the problem. cheers