I had been facing the same problem as you: I had a number of .pdf files (two pages each) that I wanted to transform into something that I could import into a Word file; something just happened to be an .emf in the end (all other formats were not accepted).
This answer assumes you are comfortable in using the console.
The tool of choice to convert vector format X into vector format Y seems to be inkscape. However, when importing a .pdf file directly into inkscape
- you can only access the first page on console (to the best of my knowledge)
- even if you select the text-to-paths option flag
-T, the text is not well-transformed.
Therefore, I found it necessary to pre-convert the .pdf file into something inkscape is able to use. I found this answer very useful, especially the mention of pdf2svg. My final sequence was the following:
pdf2svg input_filename.pdf interim_filename_%d.svg all
inkscape -T interim_filename_1.svg --export-emf=interim_filename_1.emf
(repeat for all additional pages of the .pdf)
To the best of what I can see on screen, transferring those .emf files to a Windows machine and opening them using the Windows image viewer, the result is identical to the input. Plus, having tried a test case with a custom-made LaTeX document using a font not present on my Windows machine, I also found the result identical. Skipping the initial pdf2svg step meant that the spacing was completely messed up after inkscape’s conversion.
In my case, I did not need to remove the .pdf page boundaries (I was dealing with full-page files). You may require such an intermediate step if you are interested in only a small part of the .pdf page. Pulling from this answer, pdfcrop seems to be able to do that.
Best Answer
Solidworks does support 3D PDF. I have use it several times in Solidworks 2016 SP04, so make sure your version is up to date.
Simply import the step model as you normally would, then go to file -> Save As, then at the bottom of the save window click the
Save as type:dropdown and change the filetype to PDF. Below the dropdown a new checkbox should appear:Save as 3D PDF.Selecting that option will create a 3D PDF as required.