Tip: you can also perform a quick PDF-to-Word document conversion with a series of free tools.
What You Can and Can’t Do
Before you try to convert your PDF, it’s important to know what is and isn’t possible. Outside of basic spreadsheets, you’re not going to get an exact conversion in most cases. For example, the sizes of cells may be slightly different or fonts may change a little. On more complex spreadsheets with a lot of formatting, the converted Excel version might not even line up exactly like the original PDF. Another issue is your PDF containing formulas that won’t transfer to Excel, as you just get text and background colors. Of course, having to do a little touch-up work is much easier than trying to manually recreate the entire PDF in Excel. What is possible is getting a surprisingly close conversion of your text, cell sizes, alignment, color formatting, and any included images, such as a business logo. As long as you don’t expect perfection, you’ll likely be pretty happy when you convert a PDF to a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. While you can technically import the PDF into Excel as an image, the results aren’t worth your time and effort. More often than not, it’s a mess. Instead, it’s better to use other conversion tools. Remember, you can export Office files as PDFs, but Excel doesn’t let you do the reverse.
Convert a PDF to Excel with Adobe
The simplest method involves using Adobe’s free PDF-to-Excel conversion tool. For our examples throughout this post, we’re using a teen budget template that was originally in PDF format. It includes several columns, different types of formatting, a header image, and formulas to automatically calculate items. While you can do this if you have the full version of Adobe, you don’t need it to convert your files. Instead, you can use the free online converter, which automatically deletes your files shortly after the conversion unless you create an account to store them. As you can see in the image, everything actually looks almost identical to the original PDF. As expected, the formulas in the “Total” cells don’t exist anymore, so you’ll need to add those in manually. However, the header image, alignment, and even fonts and colors converted nicely from PDF to Excel. Note: the only downside to using the free tool in Adobe Acrobat is that you’re limited to two free conversions per month. If you have Adobe Acrobat Pro, the process is fairly similar. Open your PDF file, then select “Tools -> Export PDF.” Next up, select your desired file format, in this case “Spreadsheet.” To wrap up, choose where you want to save the converted file.
Convert PDF to Excel Using Smallpdf
While Smallpdf offers multiple PDF tools, all you’ll need right now is PDF to Excel Converter. It’s free to use for up to two documents per day. You can also subscribe to a premium plan that starts at $9/month. Without the OCR support, Smallpdf doesn’t work 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 you’d like to separate, this could be the best option.
Convert PDF to Excel with PDF2Go
If you want to convert a PDF that doesn’t include images to Microsoft Excel, PDF2Go is a great option. It handles text and formatting fairly well but doesn’t bring over images. Good to know: ramp up your Excel skills with Power Pivot and other advanced features that can help you generate complex analyses. Image credit: Pixabay. All screenshots by Crystal Crowder. For instance, if you need to convert four PDFs to Excel, you could convert two in Chrome and two in Edge. You could also use Incognito Mode in the same browser or try clearing all your browsing data and cookies, just like when trying to bypass paywalls on popular news sites. In Smallpdf’s case, however, switching to a paid tier will add full OCR conversion for more precise results.
