Export PDF text into an Excel XLSX workbook for sorting and cleanup. The default export creates Page, Line and Text columns. Optional column detection helps with simple aligned tables; it does not recover the original spreadsheet or formulas.
How to convert PDF to Excel
- Choose one PDF. If prompted, enter the password needed to open a document you are allowed to use.
- For ordinary text, leave both optional settings off. For a simple selectable-text table, enable Detect columns in simple tables. For a scanned document, use English OCR instead; OCR and column detection cannot be combined.
- Select Convert & download, keeping the tab open while the workbook is created.
- Open the XLSX in Excel or another compatible spreadsheet app. Compare row order, empty cells and values with the PDF before sorting or calculating.
Text lines versus detected columns
Text-line export puts each non-empty line on one row, with its source page and line number. All pages share one worksheet. This is useful for collecting a list of names or paragraphs without guessing a table structure.
Column detection uses the positions of selectable text. For an Item, Quantity and Price table with evenly aligned columns, it can separate values into cells. Merged headings, multi-column prose and irregular spacing can confuse it. Pages without detected columns fall back to text lines.
Numbers, formulas and scan accuracy
Exported values are text cells. Convert numeric strings deliberately in your spreadsheet app before using formulas, checking decimal separators, dates, leading zeros and currency symbols. The converter does not reconstruct formulas, formatting, charts or merged cells.
English OCR reads page images and takes more time and memory. It can confuse characters such as 0 and O. Review every important value; unreadable pages may produce warnings or no useful export.
Processing and privacy
Extraction, column detection and OCR run on your device without uploading the PDF to our conversion API. OCR recognition resources still need to load, alongside normal website requests.
Long scans can exceed browser memory. Split a large document first, keep the original PDF, and use the XLSX as an extraction draft rather than a verified copy of the source data.
Frequently asked questions
Will I get an exact copy of the original spreadsheet?
No. A PDF contains page content rather than the original workbook model. This export recovers text and can infer simple columns, but cannot restore formulas or original sheet formatting.
Why are there Page and Line columns?
They identify where each extracted line came from so you can compare it with the source PDF. They also remain alongside detected table columns.
Can I detect tables in a scanned PDF?
The current column detector requires selectable text. Use OCR to extract English text lines from scans, then arrange and verify the cells yourself.