How to convert PDF to Excel without losing formatting?

Before paying for anything, try the converter built into Excel itself, because it keeps tables as tables and is free if you have Microsoft 365 or a recent Excel. It is easy to miss:

• In Excel go to Data > Get Data > From File > From PDF, pick your file, and in the Navigator choose the table (or the page) you want. Click Transform Data if it needs cleaning, then Close & Load. Excel detects the tables for you and keeps rows and columns separate, so sorting and formulas work straight away.
• Clean up in the Power Query window if needed: Use First Row as Headers, split or merge columns, change data types (numbers and dates), and remove blank rows. The steps are saved, so when next month's PDF has the same layout you can point the query at it and click Refresh, which saves a lot of time on recurring reports.
• Expect values, not styling. No converter can reproduce the PDF's fonts and colours exactly. What matters is that the numbers land in the right cells, and you can apply a table style afterwards or copy the format from a previous workbook with Format Painter.
• If the PDF is a scan or a photo (you cannot select the text in it), Excel will not read it. In that case you need OCR first: the Excel mobile app has Insert Data from Picture, or you can use a PDF reader with OCR.
• For a lot of PDFs with complicated layouts and merged cells, a paid tool such as Adobe Acrobat's Export to Excel is usually more accurate than free ones.

One caution on free online converters: your reports get uploaded to a stranger's server, so avoid them for anything with business or customer data.