Extract text from XFDF files
To convert your XFDF file to another format, you need Adobe Acrobat or other Data software.
To convert other file formats to the "PDF Form Data" file type, you need software like Adobe Acrobat or a similar tool.
The .XFDF file is an XML Forms Data Format file, a specific XML schema created by Adobe to store form inputs and document annotations separately from the original PDF file. Unlike a standard PDF, an XFDF file does not contain the actual document layout, images, or text content; it contains only the data you typed into fields or the comments/highlights you added.
This separation is a common source of difficulty for users who receive an XFDF file expecting a viewable document. Without the matching "base" PDF file, opening an XFDF in Adobe Acrobat often results in an error or a prompt to locate the original document. Furthermore, relying on Adobe's proprietary workflow to merge this data often requires paid software subscriptions.
To make this data usable, the best approach is conversion based on your intent. If you need to archive the document as it was meant to be seen, convert/merge the XFDF into a standard PDF. If you are analyzing survey results or form entries, converting the XFDF data to CSV or XLSX allows for easy sorting in spreadsheet software like Microsoft Excel. For developers, keeping it as XML is useful for programmatic parsing.
Convert.Guru analyzes your XFDF file, detects the exact format, and lets you read the text inside.
Users also converted FDF, XFDX, XDF, CSV, XML, PDF, TXT, DOCX, DB, ZIP, PD, 17 and FACES files.
If you want to convert XFDF file to PDF, XML, CSV, JSON, YAML, YML, TOML, INI, CFG, CONF, DAT or DB, you can use Adobe Acrobat or similar software from the "PDF Form Data Storage" category. In the File menu, look for Save As… or Export….
To convert DBF, XML, SQLITE, XLSX, SQL, TSV, ACCDB, YAML, MDB, CSV, ODS or JSON files to XFDF, try Adobe Acrobat or another comparable tool in the "PDF Form Data Storage" category.
The history of Convert.Guru began over 25 years ago in California with Tom Simondi’s file-format database. A former contributor to Space Shuttle development and a software pioneer of the 1980s, Simondi established a trusted resource for file type analysis that was even referenced by Microsoft Windows XP. Today, we use modern technology to process and convert thousands of file formats while continually improving our XFDF converter.