Mac handles half the PDF conversion world natively. The other half — Word, Excel, reverse conversion from images — sends you to a tool. Most people end up paying Adobe or sketchy 'free' converters that watermark the output.
Flint covers what Preview doesn't.
What Preview does natively
File → Export lets you save a PDF as JPEG, PNG, or TIFF. Each page becomes an image. Excellent for posting screenshots or embedding in slides. Quality and format options live in the dialog. For PDF → image, Mac is already sorted.
For PDF → Word, Preview has nothing. That's where Flint picks up.
PDF to Word, the right way
Upload the PDF to Flint. Output is a DOCX you can open in Word, Pages (with light fidelity loss), or Google Docs. Text, tables, and lists convert cleanly for born-digital PDFs. Heavily designed PDFs (layouts, multi-column) convert to readable text with light cleanup needed.
Reverse conversion: images and Word to PDF
Drag a Word doc into Flint's converter, get a PDF. Same for images — drop in a folder of JPGs, get a multi-page PDF (great for receipts and expense reports). Then merge with other PDFs for the final pack.
For Pages docs, export to Word from Pages first, then run through Flint — Pages itself can also export directly to PDF if that's the only step you need.
Quartz Filters for advanced cases
Preview supports custom Quartz Filters via ColorSync Utility — useful for monochrome conversion, custom DPI exports, niche workflows. Powerful but obscure. For everyday Mac users, Flint plus Preview's export covers 95% of conversion needs.
FAQ
Can I convert PDF to Pages?
Pages itself opens PDFs by importing — File → Open in Pages — though layout fidelity varies. For better results, convert PDF to Word first via Flint, then open the Word doc in Pages.
Does Preview's PDF-to-image keep text?
No — image exports are rasterised. Text becomes pixels. For text-preserving exports, stick with PDF format or convert to Word.
What's the best format for sharing?
PDF is the safest universal format. For email recipients with no PDF reader (rare), images work. For collaborative editing, Word is better than PDF.
Preview for PDF-to-image, Flint for PDF-to-Word and reverse. Together they cover everything.