PDF to Excel

The table is right there, and you still cannot sum a column

Everyone has retyped a statement or a price list from a PDF at least once. It is the clearest case of a computer holding data hostage in plain sight.

Try it on a real tableThe result opens in Excel

The reason is structural. A PDF records that a number sits at a particular spot on the page. It does not record that the spot is the third column of the second row. Recovering the grid means inferring it from alignment and spacing.

Where it works well

Tables with ruled lines, consistent column widths and one value per cell. Financial statements, invoices, price lists and exported reports usually fall into this group, because they were a spreadsheet before they were a PDF.

Where it struggles

Merged and nested cells

A header spanning three columns is obvious to a reader and ambiguous to a reconstruction.

Wrapped text inside a cell

A long description over two lines can read as two rows.

Tables split across pages

A header repeated on each page may come back as a data row.

None of these are fatal — they are a minute of tidying in the spreadsheet against twenty minutes of retyping. But it is honest to say the result is a starting point rather than a finished sheet.