What PDF to Excel does
Bank statements, price lists, mark sheets and reports often arrive as PDFs, with the numbers locked inside. Retyping them is slow and error-prone. PDF to Excel reads the text on each page, works out rows and columns from where the text sits, and writes an Excel workbook (.xlsx). Cells that contain numbers are stored as numbers, so sums and formulas work straight away.
How to convert a PDF to Excel
- Add the PDF that contains the table.
- Press convert.
- Download the .xlsx file and open it in Excel, Google Sheets or LibreOffice Calc.
- Check the columns against the original before you rely on the figures.
How table detection works
A PDF does not store a table as a table. It stores individual pieces of text at coordinates. The converter groups text into rows by vertical position and into columns by horizontal alignment. This works well for clean grids and less well for irregular layouts.
| Table style | What to expect |
|---|---|
| Simple grid with one line per row | Very good |
| Columns with consistent alignment but no borders | Good |
| Cells with wrapped, multi-line text | Lines may become separate rows |
| Merged cells and nested headers | Values may shift columns |
| Scanned or photographed table | Nothing to read — run OCR first |
Use cases
- Analysing a bank or card statement in a spreadsheet.
- Moving a supplier's price list into your own records.
- Reusing figures from a report without typing them again.
Tips for cleaner results
- Convert only the pages that hold the table. Use Extract PDF Pages first.
- After converting, sort or filter a column to reveal misplaced values quickly.
- Check totals: if a total in the spreadsheet matches the PDF, the column was read correctly.
- Dates and numbers written with unusual separators may come through as text; Excel's “Text to Columns” fixes them.
Scanned documents
A scan has no text layer. Use PDF OCR to create a searchable PDF, then convert that file. Accuracy then depends on the quality of the scan, so check carefully.
Privacy
By default the conversion runs in your browser and the file is not uploaded. If the site offers a cloud converter and you choose it, the file is sent to that service.