How to convert a PDF to Excel

 

Microsoft Excel is a spreadsheet developed by Microsoft for Windows, macOS, Android and iOS. It features calculation, graphing tools, pivot tables, and a macro programming language called Visual Basic for Applications (VBA). It has been a very widely applied spreadsheet for these platforms, especially since version 5 in 1993, and it has replaced Lotus 1-2-3 as the industry standard for spreadsheets. Excel forms part of the Microsoft Office suite of software.

There are several ways to extract data from a PDF file and transfer it to an Excel spreadsheet:

Copy and paste: If the PDF file contains text that is selectable, you can simply select the desired data and copy it to the clipboard (Ctrl+C or Cmd+C), then paste it into an Excel spreadsheet (Ctrl+V or Cmd+V).

Export as Excel: Some PDF readers, such as Adobe Acrobat, have the option to export the data in the PDF file directly to an Excel spreadsheet. To do this, open the PDF file in the PDF reader and select "Export" or "Save as" and choose "Microsoft Excel" as the file format.

Use a PDF to Excel converter: There are many third-party software tools available that can convert a PDF file to an Excel spreadsheet. Some of these tools are available online, while others require installation on your computer. Examples of popular PDF to Excel converters include Adobe Acrobat Pro, Nitro PDF, and Able2Extract.

OCR technology: If the PDF file contains scanned images or non-selectable text, you can use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology to extract the text and transfer it to an Excel spreadsheet. There are many OCR software tools available, some of which can integrate with Excel. Examples of popular OCR software include ABBYY FineReader, Adobe Acrobat Pro, and Readiris.

To use the "Get Data from PDF" option in Excel, you will need to have an Office 365 subscription and have the latest version of Excel installed. Here are the steps:

Open Excel and click on the "Data" tab in the ribbon.

Click on "From File" and select "From PDF".

In the "From PDF" dialog box, select the PDF file you want to import and click "Import".

Excel will automatically try to detect the table or tables in the PDF file and display them in a preview window.

If necessary, you can adjust the data range by dragging the selection handles or selecting different tables in the preview window.

Once you are satisfied with the data range, click "Load" to import the data into Excel.

Note that the "Get Data from PDF" option may not work perfectly for all PDF files, especially if the file contains complex tables or non-standard formatting. In such cases, you may need to use other methods to extract the data from the PDF file, such as the ones described in my previous answer.

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