How to convert a PDF to Excel

Choose File > Export > Spreadsheet (.xlsx) in PDF by Zaweba. The PDF becomes an Excel workbook with one sheet per page, tables laid out in columns and numbers stored as numbers, so totals and formulas work straight away. It runs on your own PC, offline, without Excel needing to be installed to make the file.

That last point about numbers matters more than it sounds. A lot of converters put figures into cells as text, and then nothing adds up until you've fixed every column.

How the workbook is laid out

Each page of the PDF gets its own sheet in the workbook. Page one is the first sheet, page two the second, and so on, which keeps it easy to find your way back to the original page when you're checking a figure.

On each sheet, tables are set out in columns, so a price list or a statement arrives looking like a spreadsheet rather than a block of text. Numbers come in as numbers. You can sort them, total them and chart them without converting anything first.

The file is an ordinary .xlsx. It opens in Excel, in Grid by Zaweba and in other spreadsheet programs.

Doing the conversion

Open the PDF in PDF by Zaweba. Choose File > Export, pick Spreadsheet (.xlsx), name the file and save. Open it in your spreadsheet program and go through the sheets.

Then do the bit of tidying that most converted tables need. Look down each column for anything that has slipped one place sideways, which can happen where the table on the page had an empty cell. If a table carries on over several pages, it will be split across several sheets, so copy the parts onto one sheet one under another, leaving out the repeated heading rows. Delete any page headers or footers that came across as rows.

When to copy instead

Exporting suits documents that are mostly tables, or long ones where you'd be copying for an hour. For a single table, copying is often quicker and puts it exactly where you want it.

Select the table on the page and press Ctrl+C. PDF by Zaweba notices text that looks like a table and puts it on the clipboard as rows and columns, so it pastes into Excel as cells. Edit > Copy as table (Ctrl+Alt+C) does the same for any selection, and an Alt+drag round some of the columns copies only those. That's ideal for pulling the date and amount columns out of a statement and leaving the rest.

PDFs that don't convert well

A scanned PDF is a picture of a page with no real text inside, so there are no numbers for the export to find. If you can't select text with the mouse, that's what you have.

Pages where the figures are laid out loosely, such as a designed brochure rather than a proper table, convert, but they need more hands-on tidying because there are no clear columns for the app to follow.

And some PDFs are made with permissions that stop text being copied. PDF by Zaweba respects those and says so, rather than quietly giving you an empty result.

Keeping it private

Bank statements, invoices, payroll reports and price lists are exactly the documents people most want in a spreadsheet, and exactly the ones you'd rather not upload to a website. PDF by Zaweba is free software that works offline with no account, so the conversion happens on your computer and the file never goes anywhere you didn't send it.