The problem isn't the version of Word, it is in the nature of OCR. OCR is a complex process and pays no attention to how Word works. When I want to actually use a document in Word that has been scanned, I will usually save it as plain text (.txt) and then copy that text into Word. I then use styles to format the text.

This is a fair amount of work, but nothing compared to dealing with anomalous formatting created by the OCR process. (Some OCR programs are better than others, but none produces a document that edits like one that has been directly produced in Word.)

Unfortunatley my PDF is an image PDF, i can't pull of the text from it as it is seen as a picture.

I have used ABBYY OCR and it has done a really good job in my opinion. far better than i have used in the past.

I have worked out how to lose the boxes i was on about and it has left me with the raw text. My document is 260 pages (headache) and i have gone through about 30 pages and hit the point where there are double vertical row of text.

All the text is there i just have to reconstruct it as was the orginal manual. The manual was produced in 1998 and we have no way of getting the original electronic copies.

Still head down and plow on............thanks for the reply