So I’m trying to import PDFs into Doors. The problem is, when I convert the PDFs into .doc format, the formatting isn’t preserved and there are problems with figures in the doc. Is there a tool or methodology to import PDFs directly to DOORS? Thanks for any help!

Hi David, 

The BEST method is to go back to the author and ask them for a copy of the original document in Word format.  

There are a bunch of tools out there to convert PDFs to Word, and they all do a decent job, but I have yet to find one that is perfect every time. Some miss styles, others miss special characters like '±'.  Some mess w the figures, or omit styles. They all resulted in a Word doc that needed to be painstakingly proofread and massaged.    

Ask for the Word version!  

On rare occasions I've been told no,  but after explaining why it was a genuine request, they always came through.   

If you absolutely can't get them to budge, I'd use Adobe Acrobat Pro to convert it to Word and then carefully walk through both versions comparing them side by side  

- Rick. 

Hi David,

If you need to import many PDFs or if you have to do it frequently, it might be worth having a look at the IBM Rational Rhapsody Gateway. Some help documents are listed here.

If the PDF documents aren't yours and if they are subject to change, then I would suggest extracting requirements instead of importing. In order to be able to extract them, there has to be a way of identifying them so that a regular expression can find them. In these situations Gateway does a good job.

Regards,

Oskar