How to convert PDF to Excel

PDFs are fixed-layout documents, while Excel stores data in cells. A useful conversion therefore needs to infer rows and columns from the PDF's text coordinates.

Step 1: Upload the PDF

Use PDF Forge's PDF to Excel tool and select your document. Browser limits help keep large files manageable.

Step 2: Detect rows

PDF Forge groups text fragments whose vertical positions are close together. This reconstructs likely table rows.

Step 3: Detect columns

Text fragments in each row are sorted by horizontal position. This preserves the visual left-to-right order and creates table-like cells.

Step 4: Export XLSX

The result is a real Excel workbook rather than a CSV renamed as XLSX. Each PDF page becomes a worksheet.

When conversion needs cleanup

Complex merged cells, multi-line headers, rotated tables and scanned images may require OCR or manual cleanup because their visual structure is not represented as simple text coordinates.