How to Convert a PDF to a Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet - Make Tech Easier

Occasionally, tables and sheets are only accessible in PDF format, but you can transform a PDF into a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet for editing. While conversion technology has advanced significantly, it's not yet flawless. Nonetheless, converting your PDF to Excel is free and retains much of the original spreadsheet's appearance.

Tip: You can also swiftly convert a PDF to a Word document using various free tools.

Table of Contents

• What You Can and Can't Achieve
• Transforming a PDF to Excel Using Adobe
• Converting PDF Directly in Microsoft Excel
• Conversion via CleverPDF
• Converting PDF to Excel with Smallpdf
• Converting PDF to Excel Using PDF2Go

What You Can and Can't Achieve

Before attempting to convert a PDF into an Excel spreadsheet, it's crucial to understand its limitations. Beyond simple spreadsheets, achieving an exact conversion is often challenging. For instance, cell sizes might differ slightly, or fonts may undergo minor changes.

For more intricate spreadsheets with extensive formatting, the converted Excel file might not align perfectly with the original PDF. Another concern is that formulas within the PDF won't transfer to Excel; you'll only receive text and background colors. However, making minor adjustments is far simpler than recreating the entire PDF in Excel manually.

What is feasible is obtaining a remarkably accurate conversion of your text, cell sizes, alignment, color formatting, and any included images, such as a business logo. As long as you don't demand perfection, you'll likely be satisfied with converting a PDF to a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet.

Remember, you can export Office files as PDFs, but Excel doesn't allow for the reverse conversion.

Transforming a PDF to Excel Using Adobe

The easiest method involves using Adobe's free PDF-to-Excel conversion tool. For our examples in this article, we'll use a teen budget template originally in PDF format. It features multiple columns, various formatting types, a header image, and formulas for automatic calculations.

While you can use this method with the full version of Adobe, it's not necessary for file conversion. Instead, you can utilize the free online converter, which automatically deletes your files shortly after conversion unless you create an account to store them.

Open Adobe's Convert PDF to Excel tool. Click Select a file, and choose your file from your device.

The conversion time can vary up to a minute depending on complexity. Click Download once it's finished, and save your new Excel spreadsheet.

Disregard the preview as it doesn't accurately represent the final converted file. For example, the preview may show a missing column.

The converted file looks almost identical to the original PDF. As expected, the formulas in the Total cells are absent and need to be manually added. However, the header image, alignment, and even fonts and colors translate well from PDF to Excel.

Note: The only drawback of using Adobe Acrobat's free tool is the limit of two free conversions per month. Sometimes, you can bypass this restriction using certain methods.

If you have Adobe Acrobat Pro, the process is quite similar. Open your PDF file, select Tools -> Export PDF, then choose your desired file format, in this case, Spreadsheet. Select where you want to save the converted file.

Converting PDF Directly in Microsoft Excel

Initially, Excel only offered PDF-to-Excel conversion through image conversion, which was problematic. While this option still exists, it's not recommended unless your spreadsheet is an image file type like JPG.

Depending on the PDF type, you might be able to copy and paste the entire PDF into Excel. Open the PDF, and press Ctrl A to select all text. Alternatively, highlight the desired content with your mouse and press Ctrl C.

Open a new Excel workbook, select the first empty cell, and press Ctrl V to paste the PDF into Excel. If the text becomes garbled or appears as a single row, this method won't work for you.

Instead, open Excel, and go to Data -> Get Data -> From File -> From PDF.

Choose your file, and select the item(s) you want to load into Excel. Depending on the PDF, the file may be divided into multiple data sets. For instance, my example PDF is split into six sets of data. Click any set to preview it. If you want to load all items, check Select multiple items and select Load.

If you select multiple data sets, each set is loaded into a separate tab. You can copy and paste the data sets into a single tab or keep them separate. In our example, Excel didn't retain everything identically. The header images are missing, and the data is spread across four tabs. For simple PDF sheets, Excel performs well, though.

Conversion via CleverPDF

If you don't need specialized formatting like colors and images, CleverPDF's free PDF-to-Excel conversion tool is hard to beat. There are no limits or required signups.

Open CleverPDF's PDF Excel Converter. There are numerous other PDF conversion tools available if needed. Select Choose File, and select your file. Choose how tables are selected and whether to divide each PDF page into a different sheet or combine them into one. Click Start conversion when ready.

Download your file. CleverPDF automatically deletes your file after 30 minutes, or you can manually delete it after downloading.

The final result is a simplified version of the original PDF spreadsheet. However, all the data is present and in a single tab.

Converting PDF to Excel with Smallpdf

While Smallpdf offers multiple PDF tools, all you need to convert the PDF is the PDF to Excel Converter. It's free for up to two documents per day. You can also subscribe to a premium plan starting at $9/month.

Open Smallpdf's PDF to Excel Converter. Select Choose Files, and upload your PDF(s). The tool supports uploads from your device, Google Drive, or Dropbox.

Wait for it to upload, then choose the type of conversion you want. The free version doesn't offer full OCR conversion, which means some elements may not transfer well. If you have the Pro version, you can select OCR conversion for a better 1:1 conversion. For this example, we're using the free version. Download your file once it's ready.

Without OCR support, Smallpdf doesn't perform as well as Adobe's free conversion tool. While everything converted, Smallpdf divided each section of the PDF spreadsheet into different tabs.

If you have a PDF with multiple tables that you want to separate, this could be the ideal option.

Converting PDF to Excel Using PDF2Go

If you need to convert a PDF to Microsoft Excel without images, PDF2Go is an excellent choice. It handles text and formatting reasonably well but doesn't include images.

Open PDF2Go's free Convert PDF to Excel tool. Click Choose File, and select your file. You can also enter a PDF's URL, retrieve files from Dropbox or Google Drive, or drag and drop files.

Once the file uploads, click the green Start button. By default, the tool converts into XLSX format. If you prefer XLS format, select the file type directly under your file's name before pressing Start.

Your file will automatically attempt to download once the conversion is complete. Choose where to save it or exit the dialog box and select Cloud upload to upload to Google Drive or Dropbox.

The converted file closely resembles the original but lacks the header image.

Good to know: Enhance your Excel skills with Power Pivot and other advanced features to conduct complex analyses.

Converting Isn't Perfect

Attempting to convert a PDF to a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet seldom results in perfection. However, Adobe's free tool performs the best overall and might be worth upgrading to premium if you frequently convert PDFs to Excel. If you have ebooks in PDF format, learn how to convert them to ePub and MOBI formats. Additionally, explore these Adobe PDF alternatives for reading PDF files.

Image credit: Pixabay. All screenshots by Crystal Crowder.

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