Import data from a Microsoft Forms PDF into Excel

A few approaches you can try: 1. Check PDF structure first: Open one of the PDFs in Adobe Acrobat (or any PDF editor) and try selecting the text or form elements. If you can’t select the checkbox text, it’s likely flattened. 2. Use OCR or text extraction as a workaround: If you must stick with the PDFs, try running OCR (Optical Character Recognition) using a local tool like Adobe Acrobat Pro, Systweak PDF Editor, or any other Editor. That will convert the flattened checkboxes and labels into text that Excel can potentially recognize. 3. Re-export from Forms with data intact: Instead of printing the Form response to PDF, export responses directly to Excel (via Microsoft Forms’ “Open in Excel” option). That preserves the structured data. 4. Alternative automation: If you want to automate it fully, you could set up a Power Automate flow to save each new response to both SharePoint (for backup) and as a CSV/PDF copy in your client folder. That way, you keep the data accessible and structured without depending on the “printed” PDF. Unfortunately, once a Microsoft Forms result is saved as a flat printout PDF, it loses all structured data, so no amount of VBA or Excel’s PDF connector can reliably pull that checkbox info unless OCR or manual parsing is applied.