Forum Discussion
Excel - Get Data from PDF is Missing
You are on semi-annual channel which is updated with new functionality twice per year, in Jan in Jul. Monthly Enterprise channel was updated with PDF connector in Oct 2020 Release notes for Monthly Enterprise Channel releases in 2020 - Office release notes | Microsoft Docs , semi-annual shall be updated few months later and I didn't find PDF connector in Jan update for that channel Release notes for Semi-Annual Enterprise Channel releases in 2020 - Office release notes | Microsoft Docs
Thus you shall wait till July or upgrade on Monthly Enterprise or Current channels. That's free of charge and above channels are stable enough. However, which channel to use depends mostly on your organization ITS policies, are they ready to provide more or less new functionality to end users or prefer to wait couple of years till all possible fixes will be deployed.
Hi, I am using Office Home & Student 2019 and I am missing the From PDF option as well. I am not a techie person and I do not understand what the channels mean. is there another way to get this option?
Hi Raphael1175
For Excel version, channel... Within Excel: go to File > Account, on the right side - i.e.:
The From File > From PDF option (in Excel User Interface) isn't available in all versions of Excel & Channels (no idea for Excel 2019 Home & Student). Such option allows users to easily do something (through a wizard) that could be +/- complex otherwise
However, it's not because the option doesn't appear in the Excel User Interface that don't have access to the corresponding Power Query function (Pdf.Tables). To check this on your version of Excel:
- Download the attached file & open it
- In Sheet1 rigth-click on the following Table
- Select the Refresh option
Once the Refresh is complete, search in that Table for Pdf.Tables. If you find that occurence it means your version of Excel can import Tables from PDF files
If you have Pdf.Tables function let us know and someone will explain how to use it...
Lorenzo Hi, I did the check and the entry "Pdf.Tables is in the list.
Please let me know to to proceed further.
Thanks
Ok, that's good knowledge to have. Thank you for the response.
However, it doesn't tell me why my users are saying that had this feature and then it was gone. Was it a feature Microsoft had to remove and now they're getting it back? I've had 3 user all start yelling at me, asking why this function is suddenly missing.
EDIT: I also checked with our programmer. He has a home Office 365 yearly subscription and has the Get Data From PDF feature. Are the home versions different again?
Yes, Home version is quite full functional. The difference with business/enterprise subscriptions is mainly in licensing - in brief you are not allowed to earn money with Home subscription. You shall do business using business subscription. I simplified a bit, nonetheless. You may check availability by SKU here Where is Get & Transform (Power Query) - Excel (microsoft.com)
Within SKU availability depends on the channel you are subscribed. And more exactly on version within such channel (semi-annual has 3 versions). Thus you have to compare SKU, channel and it's version to compare functionality, plus some time for the deployment. Just "I'm on Office 365" is not enough.
In general deployment of new functionality to all Office365 subscribers, from first Beta users to slowest semi-annual channel users could take couple of years. If you'd like to have new functionality faster you need to change the channel.
And yes, Microsoft could deploy some new functionality and in a while cancel it due to some critical bugs. But that happens quite seldom and not on semi-annual channel. For such changes it's not necessary to update the build, it's enough if you connected to internet. Switching functionality on/off is done by licensing manager assuming such functionality code is within your current build.
- Hi trobinson-q2
I have same issue with my Excel (Get Data from PDF is Missing), did you resolve your problem?
Regards,
Tony Hu
