PDF ↔ Word conversion (C++ vs Java) — fidelity & performance

Aspose.Words Product Family
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1

Hi Aspose Team,

We are evaluating Aspose for PDF ↔ Word conversions and have two focused questions:

  1. Conversion fidelity / feature parity
    • Is the C++ version equivalent to the Java version for bidirectional PDF↔Word conversions ?
    • Any known limitations in the C++ version as of 2025 that affect output quality or supported features compared with Java?

  2. Performance / scalability
    • For recent releases (2025), how does Aspose.Words/Aspose.PDF for C++ compare to the Java counterparts in throughput, latency, memory usage for realistic PDF↔Word workflows (large/complex docs, concurrent conversions)?
    • Do you have benchmarks or best-practice guidance highlighting scenarios where C++ may underperform or excel versus Java?

Thanks — your input will directly inform our evaluation.

2

Hello.
Thank you for your inquiry.

Since this question is more related to the technical side of our product, I have transferred the thread to the Aspose.Words category.

If you can, please change the topic setting to public (not private) on our forum, where our technically skilled experts will be happy to assist you.

If you have any questions regarding pricing or licensing, please feel free to contact us here or at sales@aspose.com.
Kind regards,
Kristijan

3

@driftstory All products from Aspose.Words family have the same codebase. The main product is Aspose.Words for .NET. Other products are produced either by posting .NET C# code, like Java and C++ version or wrapping special .NET build, like Python version.
Though all products have the same starting codebase they have limitations comparing to the main product. Aspose.Words for Java, for C++ and for NodeJS do not support loading PDF documents. Loading PDF document is supported only in .NET and Python versions of Aspose.Words.

Regarding library performance, unfortunately, we do not have benchmarks we could share with you. But in general C++ version is slower then .NET, Java and Python versions of Aspose.Words. The main version of Aspose.Words is .NET version and code is written in C#. Then code is auto ported to Java and C++. While autobooting to Java is more native since both .NET and Java uses similar concepts, porting code to C++ is harder and the resulting code might be not optimal. This leads to worse performance in C++ version.

4

Thank you for the detailed explanation — it clarifies a lot.

A quick follow-up on my scenario:

My primary requirement is high-fidelity bidirectional conversion between PDF and Word (PDF→DOCX and DOCX→PDF). Since you mentioned that Aspose.Words for C++, Java, and NodeJS do not support loading PDF documents, could you please clarify:

  1. For PDF → Word, should we use Aspose.PDF to load/parse the PDF and then combine it with Aspose.Words to generate DOCX?
    Or is it recommended to directly use Aspose.Words for .NET (or Python), which supports loading PDF natively?

  2. From a product perspective, if .NET provides the highest fidelity and performance, is it the recommended technology choice for server-side PDF↔Word conversion workflows ?

  3. Are there any known feature or quality differences in PDF→Word output between:

    • Aspose.PDF + Words pipeline
    • Aspose.Words .NET direct PDF loading

Additionally, since the C++ version is described as slower, do you have any rough quantitative guidance (even approximate ranges) on the performance gap compared with the .NET or Java versions? For example, whether it is typically within ~10% slower, 20–30%, or significantly higher under realistic workloads. Even rough estimates would be helpful for architectural planning.

Finally, if the performance and conversion fidelity gap is not too large, we would prefer to use the C++ version, as it aligns more naturally with our existing technology stack. Any guidance that helps us evaluate whether C++ is a viable choice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks again for the guidance — looking forward to your recommendation.

5

@driftstory Aspose.Words is designed to work with MS Word documents. MS Word documents are flow documents and they have structure very similar to Aspose.Words Document Object Model. But on the other hand PDF documents are fixed page format documents . While loading PDF document, Aspose.Words converts Fixed Page Document structure into the Flow Document Object Model. Unfortunately, such conversion does not guaranty 100% fidelity.

On the other hand with Aspose.PDF you can convert PDF to Word with preserving original PDF document layout when DocSaveOptions.RecognitionMode.Textbox is used, but editability of the resulting document could be limited, since all elements in the resulting document are represented with text frames with fixed position on the page, just like in PDF Fixed Page Document structure.

Taking in account the above provided information, I cannot give you an exact product recommendation. I would suggest you to try both options and check, which works better in your real scenarios.