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AlfCrawford's avatar
AlfCrawford
Copper Contributor
May 09, 2024

Convert pdf to excel

How to convert pdf to excel?

I have received a quotation as a table displayed in a PDF file. I want to convert this quotation into an Excel so that I can edit it easily. I have tried to do this in Excel by selecting Get Data - From File - From PDF, but the data is scattered in a mess of cells and requires a lot of manual changes. Need a lot of manual modification.

Are there any other ways to convert PDF to Excel? Thanks for your help. 

  • Brad_Castro 

    Thank you for your suggestion. 

     

    I tried PDFGear since it is free. It's good for me. There are still some minor differences in Excel comparing to the original form in the PDF but it is mucb better than the Get Data function in Excel. 

    This is going to be my new tool to convert PDF to Excel. I will test more PDFs on it and see if it is always stable. 

     

    Thank you! 

  • AlfCrawford 

     

    You can try converting the PDF to a Word document and then try to copy the table and paste it on Excel.

    If not, you can also try to directly convert the PDF file to an Excel file and see if it works. For instance: This one

  • Brad_Castro's avatar
    Brad_Castro
    Copper Contributor

    Hi AlfCrawford,

    Generally speaking, you can import table data in PDF directly through Get Data - From File - From PDF in Excel.
    If the layout is not consistent with the original one in the PDF, one possible reason might be the complex layout. For such situations, try to get a professional PDF editor, which usually provides a PDF to Excel function and can perform such tasks better.

    Best Regards,
    Brad

      • Brad_Castro's avatar
        Brad_Castro
        Copper Contributor
        There are both free and paid PDF editors, depending on your budget.

        Please make sure that the table content in the PDF is clear and does not contain handwriting, otherwise the conversion result will not be very good.

        I recommend 2 PDF editors here:

        Adobe Acrobat. It is a well-known solution for PDF files so it can convert PDF to Excel for sure. But if your requirement to convert PDF to Excel is not that heavy, the price might be a bit expensive.

        PDFgear. I've been using this for more than a year and it's working great. It's free and can convert PDF to Excel.

        Choose the one that fits based on your needs.

        Best Regards,
        Brad

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