Converting PDF formatted documents into Excel spreadsheets

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I am hoping to find outstanding PDF software that we can use to convert PDF formatted documents into Excel spreadsheets.

We have been using Adobe Acrobat Standard 2020 for years but it’s export performance to Excel was poor – if not useful at all.

Kofax Power PDF standard (now Tungsten Power PDF) came bundled with our new RICOH SCANSNAP 1X1600 SCANNER and we gave it a try.  It performed better than Adobe Acrobat but still left much to be desired.

We have also tried to import data from PDFs using Excel’s import data feature (Data, Get Data, From File, From PDF) but the process is at best awkward.

We do not want to use one of the “online” conversion tools due to the sensitivity of the data we are working with.

In addition, our preference is to find software that does not require a monthly or yearly subscription.

So, can anyone, with hands on experience, recommend a program that will do an outstanding job of converting .pdf files to Excel .xlsx files?

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If the original document was created by Adobe (or another PDF engine) and not scanned by a scanner, the current subscription version of Adobe does a very good job of exporting.

Hands on/personal experience however Adobe is expensive.

The key is how clean the base pdf is.

Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher

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Kathy Stevens

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“In addition, our preference is to find software that does not require a monthly or yearly subscription.”

Not possible (or near impossible) in this current business environment.

Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher

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Kathy Stevens

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Kathy, I don’t have any PDF spreadsheets to try converting to Excel, but if you have one that you can share, I can try converting it to Excel (Office 2019, in case it matters).

Not sure if converting a spreadsheet to PDF and then back to Excel would be the equivalent of what you seek to do. If it is, let me know and I can try that.

 

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Kathy Stevens

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Cybertooth

I do not have any “PDF spreadsheets” that I can share with you.

However, if you have some time, you may be able to make one using Microsoft Word.

Type some text into a blank document, then insert a table containing random numbers, then type some more text and save as a PDF.

Then try to convert the PDF document to Excel.

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Susan

We have been working with PDF credit card statements files.

The statements have been downloaded from the credit card company’s website as well as scanned copies of statements received in the mail and scanned with Adobe Acrobat Standard 2020.

In both cases, pages that contain primarily spreadsheet like configurations convert relatively well.

It is the mixed content pages that are giving us a problem.

One option that I will try moving forward is to crop the mixed content pages so that only the spreadsheet like configuration is available for export.

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It’s a little bit old now and a bit handraulic so it might not suit your workflow but I often use Tabula (https://tabula.technology/). If you do try it, it would be interesting to head what yo think about it.

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Kathy Stevens

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btbs

Have you used Tabula to convert PDF documents to Excel?

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Kathy Stevens wrote:

Have you used Tabula to convert PDF documents to Excel?

Yes, often. Unfortunately though, that’s where the “handraulic” comment comes into play. Tabula runs locally via a browser. It can try to autodetect the tables and you can also manually select the tables you want. It has a couple of different parsing techniques you can play with – if one doesn’t work the other may. It will show it’s results on the web page in a table that you can easily copy/paste into excel.

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Kathy Stevens

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Just found an alternative to converting PDF credit card statements to Excel.

Spoke with the tech staff at the credit card company and after some hunting around their web site we found that they post transactions going back 90 days on line in an Excel format.

After further discussion, the tech said he would bring up the difficulty we were having with their statements and see if they will post the Excel formatted transactions going back more than 90 days.

It is nice to bank with a local credit union.

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I suggest trying FineReader for free at Experience FineReader PDF products for free.

It can recognize text, images and tables. You can edit what it produces, specifically select or convert areas to be treated as tables then re-recognize them and split or join rows and columns before conversion to a spreadsheet file.

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Kathy Stevens

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PDFGear is free to download and use, download at https://www.pdfgear.com/

Install, open your .pdf file, goto tools, convert, pdf to Excel. Works.

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Kathy Stevens

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In this topic I was hoping to find some outstanding PDF software that we can use to transfer PDF tabular data on to Excel spreadsheets.  In undertaking the task, our primary consideration was creating accurate and properly formatted Excel spreadsheets from PDF documents.

While I was waiting on responses, I tried an alternative approach using our old standby Adobe Acrobat Standard 2020.  And it worked!  Perfect transfers of PDF tables to Microsoft Excel sheets.

The approach used involved:

• Opening the document in Adobe Acrobat Standard 2020,
• Clicking the Scan & ORC option,
• Selecting Recognize Text and choosing In This File,
• Clicking on Recognize Text (in the task bar) and Adobe scanned and converted the document,
• Then clicking on Export PDF,
• Choosing Export your PDF to Microsoft Word,
• Saving and opening the resulting Word document,
• Blocking and coping the tabular data I wanted to move into Excel,
• Opening a blank Excel sheet,
• Clicking into cell A1,
• Clicking the right mouse button and selecting Keep Source Formatting, and
• Presto chango – the date that was blocked and copied from the PDF document appeared correctly and properly formatted on the Excel sheet.

My search for a way to transfer tabular data from a PDF document to an Excel sheet is over.

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Cybertooth

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Have you tried just opening the PDF with Word directly?  I can download a PDF bank statement, open in Word, select the actual bank statement ledger, and paste into Excel.  It displays perfectly and all I have to do is widen some of the columns to display all the data.  Even the withdrawal amounts show up in red as negative numbers and the deposits as black positive numbers.

Fits easily in my Excel accounting workbook.

HTH, Dana:))

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Kathy Stevens

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Discard:))

I have tried opening PDF format credit card statements with Word 2021.

After rung for a few minutes I get the message, “The Kofax Convert Assistant has successfully converted your PDF/XPS file into Microsoft Word format.”

But the results shown on the screen are useless.

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This is not a viable solution for your situation, but there is a work around when this occurs.  Often the extra coding of some PDF files prevents Word’s PDF convertor from rendering correctly.  This extra coding usually has nothing to do with the data displayed in the PDF.

Open the PDF in your default PDF viewer (I use Chrome).  Print the PDF using the Microsoft Print to PDF function.  This saves the PDF to a PDF without any underlying code.   When you open this “Printed” PDF file with Word, most of the time it displays properly and any part can be copied and entered into Excel or edited.

“Discard:))”  Does that refer to me or my comments?

HTH, Dana:))

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Glucose, Kathy Stevens

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Discard:))

I used the approach you outlined above and it worked.

Now I have an alternative to Adobe Acrobat for copying and pasting tables in PDF documents to Excel.

Thank you

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