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Export to Word

Save the document as a Word file that flows like a normal document, keeps the page layout, or holds just the words.

Export to Word turns the document's text and pictures into a Word (.docx) file you can edit.

Steps

  1. In the rail, choose Home, then Export in the Export group, and Export to Word….
  2. Under What is in this document?, choose Typed text if the words are already in the PDF, or Handwritten or scanned if the pages are pictures.
  3. In Pages, keep Every page, or choose Select pages and type them, for example 1-3, 5.
  4. For typed text, in What to keep, choose one:
    • Editable text: text and its fonts, flowing like a normal document
    • Page layout: each line where it sits on the page
    • Words only: just the words, with no pictures and no layout
  5. Choose Choose where to save… and save the file. Cancel closes the window and saves nothing.

Handwritten or scanned documents

Choose Handwritten or scanned and then Read the pages with: This computer for printed text (nothing leaves your computer), or Claude or Azure to read handwriting too. A reader is offered only when it is set up: Claude and Azure need a key in Settings.

Monstera reads the pages you chose, one after another, with the progress in the bar at the bottom. Cancel there stops, and no Word file is written. Then you choose where to save, and the file holds the words only.

  • Claude and Azure get a picture of each page you chose. The window says how many pages are sent before you choose, and a page you did not choose is not sent.
  • The words read are also kept, unseen, in your document, so you can search it. Undo (Ctrl+Z) takes out all the pages of one reading together.
  • A page that already has real text is left as it is and not read again.
  • A table with ruled lines, and a clearly laid out table in words Monstera has read from a scan, comes out as a real Word table with rows and cells in the two flowing choices. A table whose columns Monstera cannot be sure of stays as text rather than becoming a wrong table. To get any table in cells, use "Export tables to Excel".

Good to know

  • Pictures come with the text in two of the three choices. With Editable text, each picture sits between the paragraphs it sits between on the page, made smaller if it is wider than the page's text. With Page layout, each picture is placed where it is on the page, behind the text. Words only has no pictures.
  • A picture comes out as it looks on the page: turned if the page shows it turned, and see-through where it is see-through.
  • Scanned pages have no text until it is recognised; see "Make scanned pages searchable", or "Recognise scanned pages when exporting" to have exports do it first.
  • The document itself is not changed, unless scanned pages are recognised first.

This is the article from Monstera's built-in Help centre. In the app, press F1 to open the article for where you are. All help articles