PDF embedded in Word. Would love a way forward with this

[Tony G]

Hi

I am currently working in an environment where all provided software is provided via Moka 5 VM ware. As some of you may know, Moka 5 are discontinuing their business. Consequently the alternative being offered is to use an i link solution, which for me is not the correct way to go. It'll be waaaayyyy too slow.
So, I am running a macbook air 2014. All going very well indeed. I can use Outlook for mac if I wish, I use dropbox for all my file storage (working very well).
There's ONE thing that I need to do as part of my work, and that is to issue a document regularly that is a word document, with pdf files embedded. Not pages from a pdf, but files.
Office for mac won't do it, I've looked at libre office, that won't do it either.

Is there ANY way of me achieving this on my mac, or do I have to set up a new VM on my mac for this one small task that I do each week.

Really hope some clever macrumors forum member can help with this.

Thanks in anticipation

 

[MisterMe]

...

There's ONE thing that I need to do as part of my work, and that is to issue a document regularly that is a word document, with pdf files embedded. Not pages from a pdf, but files.
Office for mac won't do it, ...

OK. I have no problem embedding PDF files or files in any other supported graphics format in Word documents. You should better explain what it is that you want to do that you can't do.

 

[Tony G]

I am using Word for Mac. It will let me add a page from a pdf, but not a pdf file containing more than one page.

Are you using Word for mac ? If so what is the process you use to embed the pdf file ?

My aim here is to not have to use the windows environment at all.

 

[TheralSadurns]

I know exactly what you want. I HATE it, personally, when people embed pdfs in Word files... just hand over the file to begin with... but anyhow...

What you want is:
Word → Insert → Object and pick pdf (see screenshots 1 and 2 done in Word 2013 Windows)

Word 2011 Mac cannot do it.
Word 2016 Mac cannot, for now, do it either... see screenshots 3 + 4

Since it is a preview version... and at least Office files can alrdy be embedded... there is a chance they include the functionality you desire!

 

[Tony G]

Thanks for the replies so far.

Is it the case that there really is no way of embedding a pdf into a document using my mac

Really ?? Can't believe it in this day and age !!

By the way. It doesn't need to be using word, or excel, just any program on a mac that can achieve what I want to do.

If someone else can help, I know it won't just be me who would be extremely thankful. Ive read a lot of posts on this across the net.

 

[MisterMe]

The last time I checked, PDF files are files. See that little button that says [From File...] in the lower left hand corner of the Object dialog box? Click it. Then select your PDF file.

 

[monokakata]

I tried this, not because I need to do it, but because it interested me as a problem.

Even after following MisterMe's instructions, with Word 2011, I can only add a page.

 

[TheralSadurns]

I tried this, not because I need to do it, but because it interested me as a problem.

Even after following MisterMe's instructions, with Word 2011, I can only add a page.

Same in Word 2016. That's why I didn't mention that option earlier.



Can you not simply... uh... zip a folder with all the files the others need?!
I mean... why does it have to be within a document?! Rather than a zip file?

 

[Pharmscott]

The last time I checked, PDF files are files. See that little button that says [From File...] in the lower left hand corner of the Object dialog box? Click it. Then select your PDF file.

Yes, this is how it works on Word for Windows. But I tried it on Word for Mac and as the OP said, it only inserts the single page. Strange, there must be a way to do this. I do this often on Windows at work.

 

[mns579]

I've never encountered an Office file with embedded PDFs. Lucky, I guess. But the OP's problem sparked my interest.

I toyed with several roundabout approaches to stay within Mac Word's embed limitations: exporting PDF from Preview as multipage .tiff--then inserting into Word and shifting the tiff's layers so that they're not directly on top of each other; using Automator to export the PDF's pages as separate image files, then using GraphicConverter's Concat . . . conversion function to "fuse" the discrete image files into one long, continuous image--then inserting into Word; exporting PDF from QuickTime 7 Pro as a self-contained movie--then inserting into Word; etc. All techniques sort of work, but all also destroy the PDF--as a PDF--to replace it with something that Mac Word can handle.

This thread in the Microsoft forums-- http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...2011-mac/514d0646-e5e3-4009-a4e1-85bbe699e815 --says it can't be done. More important to my mind, however, is the information contained in Zaphod_Beeblebrox's post that explains that Mac users aren't even able to access an embedded PDF without diving into Office's pseudo-zip (.docx., .xlsx, etc.) format to retrieve and rename .bin files. (Power users, perhaps, but not the average Joe and Jane.) I have to wonder whether the OP knows that Mac Office users have no simple access to embedded PDFs in these files?

 

[Tony G]

Great to see this thread getting a bit of traction. Yes, I am aware that it works (or rather doesn't work ) both ways, in that not only can you not attach or embed a pdf into a word document, but that you also can't read one that was sent to you either.

I posted on here in the hope that someone may have found a work around. However I am quickly coming to the conclusion that, as much as it grates on me, that the mac can't quite do everything that I need, and that I must now shell out for a Windows environment, and work across platforms for that small amount of work that needs doing.

Shame.

 

[mns579]

So that we have something with which to experiment, could you post a small Windows-generated Word document with an embedded PDF? I'm wondering if it might be possible to reverse Zaphod_Beeblebrox's extraction process to insert a PDF into a Word document, but I need a sample to test the idea.

To post a .docx sample file here, you'll probably need to zip it so that it will pass through the board's attachments filters. You'll also need to keep the zip file small (under 2.86 MB).

 

[TheralSadurns]

So that we have something with which to experiment, could you post a small Windows-generated Word document with an embedded PDF? I'm wondering if it might be possible to reverse Zaphod_Beeblebrox's extraction process to insert a PDF into a Word document, but I need a sample to test the idea.

To post a .docx sample file here, you'll probably need to zip it so that it will pass through the board's attachments filters. You'll also need to keep the zip file small (under 2.86 MB).

Here you go!
And also a screenshot of both how it looks in Windows Word 2013 and Mac Word 2016.

The pdf is definitely in there tho, see screenshot from BetterZip.

 

[TheralSadurns]

So that we have something with which to experiment, could you post a small Windows-generated Word document with an embedded PDF? I'm wondering if it might be possible to reverse Zaphod_Beeblebrox's extraction process to insert a PDF into a Word document, but I need a sample to test the idea.

To post a .docx sample file here, you'll probably need to zip it so that it will pass through the board's attachments filters. You'll also need to keep the zip file small (under 2.86 MB).

Haha forgot the actual file

 

[mns579]

Steps in proof-of-concept test:

1. Downloaded and unzipped file above to Demo Word.docx
2. Renamed Demo Word.docx as Demo Word.zip
3. Used Mac's Archive Utility to unzip Demo Word.zip into folder of materials.
4. In the folder, deleted /word/embeddings/oleObject1.bin
5. Inserted new PDF named oleObject1.bin in place of deleted one
6. Compressed (Archive Utility) files in folder, then changed extension of new file Archive.zip to Archive.docx
7. Opened Archived.docx in Word 2011
8. Received error message ("file is corrupt"); clicked "OK" anyway
9. Received second error message ("unreadable content"); clicked "Yes" to recover content
10. File opened in Word. Looks the same as file you posted. On a Mac, when I click the embedded PDF link, I naturally get Word 2011's equivalent error message ("Word cannot locate the server application . . .") that you got above, but the real questions are: If you open Archive.docx in Windows, (a) are there error messages, and (b) can the newly inserted, embedded PDF be opened? (The new PDF is simply this thread printed to PDF.)

Executive summary for test: On a Windows machine, download and unzip Archive.zip. Open resulting Archive.docx and click through the error messages (if any). Click on embedded PDF in document. What happens?

-----
Oops. Botched final step. Should read:

On a Windows machine, download (but don't unzip) Archive.zip. Rename as Archive.docx. Open Archive.docx in Word and click through the error messages (if any). Click on embedded PDF in document. What happens?

 

[mns579]

The rest of the story . . .

I borrowed a buddy's Windows machine to test Archive.zip (Archive.docx). Although the messages are a bit different in Windows, they amount functionally to the same thing: file unreadable and can't be opened, then recovery, then document opens in Word for Windows but the "server" can't handle the inserted, embedded PDF.

So I'll put this experiment behind me. I conclude that the OP will need to use Windows for the task.

 

[onekerato]

By the way. It doesn't need to be using word, or excel, just any program on a mac that can achieve what I want to do.

On Mac OS X, there is TextEdit which supports the RTFD file format (RTF formatted document with embedded file attachments). This is one way to embed one or more PDFs within a rich text document on OS X. TextEdit (and the textutil command line utility) can import/export Word documents, so you could experiment with that.

Also, RTFD is an Apple-supported format so there are several 3rd party word processing apps on OS X that can import and/or export RTFD files.

 

[jjcv]

I often import PDF files into a Word Document (Office 2011). I use these steps:

1. Insert Photo
2. Photo from File
3. Choose your PDF File
4. At the bottom of the image that comes up you can choose which page to insert.
5. Repeat for all the pages you want to insert

Good for a few pages but a pain for large documents.

For large documents I do it a little differently and insert the PDF files to the end of the document. For this save my document as PDF and then use "PDF Genius.app" to merge the files together into one document. This APP allows for all sorts of manipulations of PDF files. May not suit your need but works for me.

 

[sonenthal]

This works for Word for MAC 2011, not 2016

 

[ithisithatilike]

I'm working on a 200+ dossier for a pharmaceutical drug registration and it was driving me nuts, but ultimately, what worked the best was to export any Word to PDF first, then open the PDF with Mac's Preview, then enable the thumbnails sidebar, then grab each page one by one into the location I want it inside the Word document. Like I said, not ideal, but not terrible as other alternatives.

 

[dsonnenberg222]

Thanks for this post. I was really frustrated. What I found was the best thing to do was take a screenshot and then go to insert, photo and go to the screenshot file and then insert it.. Good luck. one step at a time.

 

[sistla]

Thanks for this post. I was really frustrated. What I found was the best thing to do was take a screenshot and then go to insert, photo and go to the screenshot file and then insert it.. Good luck. one step at a time.

[doublepost=1490315328][/doublepost]Please find the below video which provides step to step to insert pdf in word, and fix the icon issue

 

[Jean Desnoyers]

This will not work in Word for MAC .... it does not work only shows the first page as an image.