How to Insert a PDF into Word in 3 Simple Methods

Melissa Lee updated on Jul 20, 2023 to PDF Editor Tutorials

Sometimes you may need to insert files into your word doc to add more information, such as an image, a PDF file, and so on. Many people perhaps have no idea about how to insert a pdf into word, actually, there are at least three ways for you to do so. If you want to know the answer to the question: how to insert pdf into word, keep reading this post.

Update:
Recently, Microsoft is making a change to its Microsoft Office branding. Microsoft Office is being renamed by Microsoft 365. After the official renaming, our article content will be updated accordingly.

When creating a Word document, it's necessary to add some supplementary files to make it more useful and informative. For instance, you can insert an image or a form. In addition to that, you can also import a PDF file from your device and insert it into the Word document.

But how to do that? Many of you may don't know the detailed steps. Actually, there are enough methods you can use to insert a PDF file into Word. If you want to know more about how to insert a PDF into Word, keep reading this post.

How to Insert PDF into Word as an Embedded/Linked Object 

To import PDF into Word and insert it as an attachment, you can choose to add the file as an embedded object or a linked object. Both methods enable you to create the object from files on your device, but there is a fundamental difference between the two.

If you insert a PDF file into a Word document as an embedded object, it becomes a part of the document. In other words, if you embed it into the Word doc, it will not reflect any change you made to the source file. Therefore, when you decide to use this method to insert PDF files, you need to make sure you are done editing the PDF.

If you choose to import PDF into Word as a linked object, things are different. Inserting PDF into Word as a linked object means the file is added merely as an external document. It will appear as its first page while reflecting the changes you made to the source file.

There is one thing worth mentioning: don't forget to have the file hosted, such as on OneDrive or other cloud services, and ensure that both the Word and PDF documents are connected to the cloud. Otherwise, the linked PDF in Word will not be able to reflect the changes you have made.

How to Insert PDF into Word Document as Objects:

Step 1. Open the Word document, and place your cursor where you want to insert the PDF file. Then, click on the "Insert" on the top of the interface.

Step 2. In the "Text" group, you can find the "Object" option from the dropdown menu, click on the button to choose it.

Step 3. On the pop-up window, there will be two tabs that say "Create New" and "Create from File", click the latter one, and then you can browse the file you want to insert to Word from your device.

Step 4. Now, you have two choices:

  • Inserting a PDF into Word as an Embedded Object: After selecting the PDF file from the folder, click on the "OK" button to import it as an embedded file. You can choose to display the PDF as an icon if you are not willing to show the first page.
  • Inserting a PDF into a Word Doc as a Linked Object: After selecting the PDF file from the folder, tick the box before "Link to file". If you want to show the PDF as an icon instead of its first page, tick the box before "Display as icon", too.

Step 5. Now, the PDF you want to insert will appear in your preferred form.

How to Insert a PDF into Word as an Image 

If there are only a few pages in your PDF file, inserting PDF into Word as a static image is a great choice since it will be more convenient for you to demonstrate its contents while also ensuring that no one can change the contents by mistake. To add a PDF into Word as a picture, the first step is to convert a PDF file into an image format, such as JPG or PNG.

You can use the pre-installed screenshot tool of the Windows system to create a picture from PDF if the PDF file is only one page long. You can easily do that by pressing the keyboard shortcut "Print Screen". What if it contains three or four pages? You can use a third-party PDF converter to create pictures from PDF. We will take EaseUS PDF Editor as an example.

EaseUS PDF editing software offers you many easy-to-use editing tools you can use in a few clicks, and you can use it to read, rotate, split, and merge PDF pages. Besides its features that work as a PDF editor, it can also work as a converter to convert PDF to Excel, PPT, JPG, etc. Moreover, it also supports many other image formats, like BMP, GIF, or TIFF.

We will now show you the operating steps of converting PDF into an image and inserting it into a Word document.

Stage 1. How to Convert PDF to Image

Step 1. Launch EaseUS PDF Editor, then click "File" > "Open" to choose the PDF document. Or you can directly click "Open Files…" to import the PDF that you want to convert.

Step 2. Once the PDF file is imported successfully, click the "Convert" button at the top of the interface and choose what you want to save.

Step 3. After that, select the pages you want to convert flexibly according to your needs.

When the converting process finishes, you can customize the file name and file path to save it.

Stage 2. Insert the Image to Word

Step 1. Open the Word document to which you want to insert pictures. Under the "Insert" tab, choose the "Picture" option.

Step 2. Select the picture and click on the "Insert" button on the bottom right. Then, you can insert the picture converted from a PDF file into the Word doc.

How to Insert a PDF into a Word Document as Text 

Can you insert a PDF into Word as text? Some people want to do that because they can easily edit the contents and renew them in time.  But most people don't know exactly how to do that. In this part, a step-by-step tutorial will be offered to tell you how to extract text from a PDF file and add it to a Word document.

As a great office software, Microsoft Word offers users a built-in PDF-to-text converting tool. When you use this function for the first time, a pop-up window will ask you for permission to the conversion. And it will take seconds to complete the conversion after you choose to allow it to do so.

You should pay attention to something: the result may look different from the original PDF, especially when it contains too many graphics. Now, let's look at the guide below.

How to Put a PDF into Word as Text:

Step 1. Open the Word doc to which you plan to insert text. Then, choose the "Insert" tab on the top of the interface. 

Step 2. Click the "Object" option in the "Text" group, and select "Text from File" in the drop-down menu. 

Step 3. Select the PDF file, which is the source of the text. And click on the "Insert" button. When the pop-up window appears and informs you of a notification message, click "OK" to continue.

Step 4. The converting process will last for several seconds, and it depends on the size of the PDF file and the computer performance. Then, the text that is converted from the PDF file will appear in the Word document.

Conclusion

On this page, we talked mainly about three methods of inserting PDF into Word. You can easily use those methods to insert PDF files in any form you like. No matter you want to insert them as embedded PDF files in word or linked PDF files, the tutorials we offered above will be helpful.

If you need to turn the PDF into other formats, such as image formats or text formats, you can try EaseUS PDF Editor and also follow the guides above to convert and insert the converted output into a Word document. Have a try right now.