How to Convert PDF to Excel, Including Scans and Batches

TL;DR: For a PDF made on a computer (an exported statement, a report, an invoice), use Excel's own import: Data > Get Data > From File > From PDF in Excel for Microsoft 365 on Windows. It finds the tables and loads them as real cells. For a scan or a photo, the PDF has no text to import, so you need OCR: Excel's Data from Picture for one table, Acrobat or an online converter for a whole file. For many PDFs into one sheet, Power Query's folder import works when every file has the same layout; an AI agent reads them when the layouts differ.

Disclosure: The Drive AI publishes this guide, and the last method uses its agent. Every other method works without it.

How do you convert a PDF to Excel?

Open Excel, go to Data > Get Data > From File > From PDF, pick the file, select the table in the Navigator and click Load. The table arrives as cells you can sort and sum. This works in Excel for Microsoft 365 on Windows, for PDFs that contain real text. Scanned PDFs need OCR first, covered below.

Which method fits depends on what kind of PDF you have:

To tell which kind you have, try to select a word in the PDF. If the text highlights, it is a digital PDF. If you can only draw a box around the page, it is an image.

How do you import a PDF table with Excel's Get Data?

In Excel for Microsoft 365 on Windows, choose Data > Get Data > From File > From PDF. Excel lists every table and page it found. Select one and click Load, or Transform Data to clean it first in Power Query. Tables that continue across pages are joined into one by default.

A few things to know before you rely on it:

• Which Excel has it. Microsoft's table of Power Query sources lists the PDF connector for Microsoft 365 plans, not for Office 2016 or Office 2019, and its Mac instructions do not include a PDF import. On Windows it also needs .NET Framework 4.5 or later; if Excel says the connector "requires one or more additional components", that is the missing piece.
• It refreshes. The import is a query, so if you replace the PDF with next month's version at the same path, Data > Refresh All reloads it.
• Expect some cleanup. Rows that wrap onto two lines, merged headers and running balances can land in the wrong cells. Power Query's Fill Down, Split Column and Remove Rows fix most of it, and the steps are kept for the next refresh.

Can you copy and paste a table from a PDF into Excel?

Yes, for a short, simple table. Select the table in your PDF reader, copy it, and paste into Excel. Often every row lands in a single column. Then use Data > Text to Columns with spaces or tabs as the delimiter, and check that amounts with spaces or currency symbols split correctly.

Copy and paste suits a one-off table of a dozen rows. It does not suit a 20-page statement, because each page break and header repeats in the paste and has to be deleted by hand.

How do you convert a scanned PDF to Excel?

A scan is a picture of a page, so there is no text for Excel's From PDF import to find. You need optical character recognition (OCR) to turn the picture into characters first; our OCR tools comparison rates the main options on accuracy. Excel's Data from Picture does this for one table at a time; Acrobat, online converters and AI agents do it for whole files. The same applies when you convert a scanned PDF to Word.

• Excel's Data from Picture. In Excel for Microsoft 365, Data > From Picture reads a table from an image file or the clipboard, so a screenshot of one page of a scan works. Excel shows what it read and asks you to review it before Insert Data. Microsoft's advice is to crop to the table and shoot it straight on.
• Adobe Acrobat. When a PDF contains scanned text, Acrobat runs text recognition automatically as it exports to Excel.
• Online converters. Many PDF to Excel sites run OCR on uploaded scans. Quality varies, most free tiers cap file size or the number of conversions, and the file is uploaded to the service, which matters for bank statements and payroll.

Whichever you use, check the numbers. OCR misreads are quiet: a 5 read as an S, or a decimal point dropped, still produces a tidy cell. Add up a column and compare it with the total printed on the page.

How do you export a PDF to Excel in Adobe Acrobat?

Open the PDF in Acrobat, click the Export PDF tool, choose Spreadsheet and then Microsoft Excel Workbook, and click Export. Scanned text is recognised automatically. Adobe also has a free online PDF to Excel converter; unlimited conversion and the desktop app come with paid plans (Export PDF, Acrobat Standard or Pro).

Acrobat converts the whole document, text and tables together, so expect paragraphs and page headers in the workbook alongside the data. Each PDF becomes its own workbook, so a year of statements is twelve files to combine afterwards.

How do you convert many PDFs into one Excel sheet?

If every PDF has the same layout, such as twelve statements from one bank, use Power Query's folder import in Excel for Microsoft 365 on Windows: Data > Get Data > From File > From Folder, then Combine. Excel applies one PDF's steps to every file and stacks the results into one table.

It works well when the layout is identical and badly when it is not. A bank that moved a column in March, or invoices from forty vendors with forty layouts, breaks the shared steps, and you are back to fixing files one at a time. Scanned files in the folder still have no text to read.

That case, many files with different layouts, some of them scans, is where reading the documents rather than parsing their layout pays off.

How does The Drive AI convert PDFs to Excel?

Upload the PDF to The Drive AI, open the agent and say what you want: "Put the tables from this bank statement into a spreadsheet." The agent reads the PDF and gives you an Excel workbook or a CSV, as a file you can view, download or save to a folder.

What you get back:

• A real workbook. Excel files the agent makes have real formulas, several sheets and number formats. Totals are formulas, so they recalculate when you correct a cell.
• One sheet from many files. Open a folder and ask, for example, "Read every bank statement in this folder and put all the transactions in one sheet, with the month and account on each row." The agent reads every PDF in the folder and builds one table, whatever each file's layout. A Free task covers up to 50 files, a Premium task up to 500.
• Scans, within the plan's page limit. Scanned PDFs are read with OCR when they are uploaded, up to 5 pages per file on Free and 200 on Premium; pages past the limit are stored but not read. Photos of paper (JPG, PNG and other images) are read on Premium and above.

The file appears in the chat first and nothing goes into your workspace until you save it. The details, including the other plans' limits, are on the plans page.

Which PDF to Excel method should you use?

Use Excel's From PDF import for a digital PDF with clean tables, and copy and paste for a small one. For a scan, use OCR and check the totals. For many files with the same layout, use Power Query's folder import; for many files with different layouts or scans among them, use an agent.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can Excel open a PDF directly?

Not with File > Open. Excel for Microsoft 365 on Windows imports the tables from a PDF through Data > Get Data > From File > From PDF, which loads them as cells. It does not bring in the page layout or paragraphs, and it cannot read a scanned PDF, because a scan has no text.

Why does my PDF paste into one column in Excel?

The PDF stores text in positioned runs, not table cells, so a copy loses the column boundaries. Select the column and use Data > Text to Columns, splitting on spaces or tabs. If amounts contain spaces, use the From PDF import instead, which detects the table's columns.

How do I convert a bank statement PDF to Excel?

If the bank lets you download transactions as CSV or Excel, do that; it skips conversion entirely. Otherwise use Excel's From PDF import for a downloaded statement, or OCR for a scanned one. Check the result by summing the transactions and comparing them with the statement's opening and closing balance.

Is there a free way to convert PDF to Excel?

Yes. Copy and paste is free everywhere. Excel's From PDF import costs nothing beyond a Microsoft 365 subscription you may already have. Adobe and many other sites offer free online converters with limits, and The Drive AI's Free plan converts PDFs by asking the agent, within its monthly task allowance.

Is it safe to upload bank statements to an online PDF converter?

It depends on the service. Uploading sends the file to a third party, so read how long it keeps uploads and whether it uses them for anything else. For sensitive files, prefer a conversion that runs inside software you already trust with them, such as Excel on your own computer.