Insert PDF into Word document on PC without converting file format

Question

I recently switched operating systems from a Mac to a PC. On a Mac, you can drag or insert PDFs into Word documents, and Word recognizes them as vector files. When I open those Word documents on my PC, Word still recognizes those them as vector files, which I know because I can zoom in arbitrarily without loss of resolution, and the document size is not that large. However, if I insert a new PDF into a Word document, it becomes rasterized. Is there a way to force Word to recognize PDFs as vector files on a PC? It seems like it should have the capability to do so because it isn't converting the PDFs that are already in the document.

I do have Adobe, but when I click Insert Object -> Adobe Acrobat Document, the file is getting converted. On a Mac, I think I could insert PDFs via the Insert Picture option, but that does not seem to work on PDFs on a PC.

Would like to avoid proprietary file formats because I'm creating the PDFs in R. I'm using Word 2016 and Windows 10 Pro.

Answer 1

There's a Windows Word add-in for that. See PDFpasteup.com addin for a free trial version.

The add-in imports PDF pages, or parts of pages, as EMF-formatted vector graphics so there's no rasterization. Any raster images are imported at the full, original resolution of the PDF. The add-in will let you set up Mail Merge variables to automate the process if this is a job you do regularly.

Answer 2

Do you have a Google Account? Use its Google Docs to open the PDF and download the PDF file as Word, you will be able to insert the PDF contents into a Word.

Answer 3

Starting with Office 2016 and Microsoft 365, Microsoft Office finally supports Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG). So you can convert your PDF to SVGs and insert them into your Office document.

You can use pdf2svg to convert your (multi-page) PDF into (multiple) SVGs:

pdf2svg input.pdf output_%d.svg all