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PDF Table Extractor

Pull a table out of a PDF into a spreadsheet. A table that runs across many pages comes out as one continuous sheet, with the repeated headers removed.

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How to use the PDF Table Extractor

  1. 1Add a PDF that contains a table.
  2. 2Enter the pages the table is on, such as 3-7, or leave it blank to scan every page.
  3. 3Check the preview, and move the column sensitivity slider if columns are split or merged.
  4. 4Download the table as an Excel workbook or a CSV file.

How it works

A PDF does not store tables. It stores pieces of text at coordinates that only look like rows and columns. The tool reads every text fragment with its position, groups fragments on the same baseline into rows, and finds the left edges that many rows share — those become the columns.

Long reports usually split one table over several pages and repeat the header at the top of each. With One sheet selected, the pages you chose are stacked into a single table, and when a page opens with the same header row as the first page, that repeat is removed, so the result can be sorted and filtered straight away. Choose Sheet per page to keep them apart instead.

Figures such as 1,234.50, $980 or (45.00) are converted to plain numbers a spreadsheet can add up, with brackets read as negative. Values with leading zeros, such as account codes, are left as text so the zeros are kept, and ambiguous formats such as 1.234,50 are not guessed at.

This works on PDFs that contain real text — exports from accounting systems, spreadsheets and reporting tools. A scanned table is a picture, with no text to read.

Frequently asked questions

How is this different from PDF to Excel?
PDF to Excel puts each page on its own sheet exactly as laid out. This tool is built for one table that spans many pages: it joins the pages into a single sheet, removes repeated headers and converts formatted figures to numbers.
Why are some columns merged or split?
Columns are inferred from where text starts on the page. Move the column sensitivity slider down to split columns that sit close together, or up to merge columns that were split.
Can it read a scanned PDF?
No. A scan holds an image of the table rather than text. The Image to Text tool can recover the words, but the columns would need rebuilding by hand.
What about cells that wrap onto two lines?
They usually appear as an extra row with most columns empty. Check the preview and tidy those rows in your spreadsheet.