Guide for Converting PDFs to Excel

STEP 1: Open Your PDF file. 

To do so, click on the Open button on the toolbar:

Or, select the Open... command from the File menu. 

 

STEP 2: Select the data you want to convert.
You must select data in your PDF prior to converting. Three selection types are available:

   1. Mouse Selection:
Left click mouse button beginning at the position from which you want to select text. Then drag the mouse pointer (while still holding the left mouse button pressed) over the portion of the text you want to select.

   2. Selection Options from the Edit menu:

• Select Page Range – use this command to select certain range of pages from the document (e.g. pages 1,4,9, 3–17, etc.)
• Select All Pages – use this command to select all the pages of the particular document
• Select All on Page – use this command to select all the data on the page you are currently on
• Select Area – use this command to select only certain portion of the data from just one page (e.g. one paragraph, one column etc.)

   3. Toolbar Selection Options:

You can also use the All or Area options on the toolbar.

Clicking on the All option will select the entire document, while clicking on the Area option will allow you to select the data you want to be converted with your mouse.

 

STEP 3: Convert to Excel.

After selecting the data, you are ready for conversion. Click on the Excel icon on the toolbar: 

 

Alternatively, select Convert to Excel option from the File menu:

 

 

Now you will be prompted with the following dialog box:

The above dialog box gives you two options for your PDF-to-Excel Conversion:

• Standard – Automatically interprets the table structure of the document and converts into Excel without user input. For automatic PDF-to-Excel conversion, click on the Convert button under Automatic option. In the Save As dialog that will appear, give the output file a name and select a location where you would like the file to be saved. Then click on the Save button.
• Custom – Gives a user control of designating how the conversion to Excel will look (more details on this below). 

* Using the Custom Excel Conversion Feature:

The Custom PDF-to-Excel conversion option, among other things, lets you manually add and re-position as many lines as required to designate the column breaks for the conversion into Excel.
Here is a look at the Excel custom conversion options:

You can use the custom options to select the page range you want to convert, in case you originally selected the wrong one. 

Users can also add, delete or replot tables, manually add or delete row lines in order to improve the accuracy of the conversion, edit footers and headers, etc.

Once you have made all your changes, you can check the Show Preview checkbox to see what the output file will look like. To start the conversion process, click on the green Convert button and save the output file on a desired location.