pdfMB

PDF to Excel

Turn the tables in a PDF into an Excel file, with numbers you can calculate with. Your file stays on this device.

  • No uploadYour file stays on this device.
  • Your original stays as it isYou download a new copy. Your file is never changed.
  • Free, no sign-upNo account and no daily limit.

What happens to your file

Everything below happens inside your browser, on your own device. The PDF is not uploaded, so nobody else, including us, can see it.

  1. Your browser opens the PDF with pdf.js, the PDF viewer built into Firefox, and reads every piece of text with its position, plus every line and thin bar drawn on the page.
  2. Lines that touch each other are grouped into grids. Each gap between lines becomes a row or a column, and where a line between two cells is missing, the cells are merged, as in a heading that spans several columns.
  3. Tables without lines are found from the empty gaps that run down through several rows, the way your eye sees columns. Ordinary paragraphs and pages with two columns of text are not turned into tables.
  4. Text that wraps onto a second line inside a cell stays in the same cell. A table that continues on the next page is joined into one sheet when its columns line up, and a header that is repeated on each page is kept once.
  5. Each cell is checked for numbers, percentages, amounts of money and dates, and these are saved as values with a matching number format, so 1,250.00 and ($90.00) are numbers you can add up.
  6. Some PDFs, often ones saved from a web browser, mark certain characters as “no character”. In Thai these are usually tone marks. pdfMB rebuilds them from the fonts inside your file before reading the tables.
  7. The .xlsx file is put together on your device and saved straight to your downloads. It contains only your tables, with no name, date or other details about you.
In short
  1. Choose a PDF
  2. Pick how to arrange the sheets
  3. Press “Convert to Excel”
  4. Download the .xlsx file

How to convert a PDF to Excel

  1. Choose a PDF or drop it on the box. pdfMB reads every page and tells you whether any pages are scans without text.
  2. Pick how to arrange the result: one sheet per table, one sheet per page with the text around the tables, or everything on one sheet.
  3. Press “Convert to Excel”. A bar shows how far it has got.
  4. Download the .xlsx file and open it in Microsoft Excel, LibreOffice Calc, Google Sheets or Numbers. The summary shows how many tables, rows and numbers it found.

How numbers and dates come out

  • Thousands separators, decimals, minus signs and amounts in brackets, such as (1,200.00), become numbers. Brackets are read as a negative amount, as accountants write them.
  • Currency signs and codes, such as $, €, ฿ or THB, and percent signs are kept in the cell’s number format. The value itself is a plain number, so 12.5% is stored as 0.125.
  • Codes that start with 0, like 00123, and numbers longer than 15 digits, like account or ID numbers, stay as text. Excel would otherwise drop the zeros or round the last digits.
  • Dates written as 2026-01-15 or with a month name become real dates. For dates like 03/04/2026, the whole column is checked: if another date in it has a day above 12, the order is known. If not, the dates stay as text instead of guessing.
  • Decimal commas, as in 1.234,56, are used only when the other numbers in the same column are written that way too.

When people use it

Bank and card statements

Get the transactions out of a statement so you can sort them, add up a month or check them against your records.

Price lists and quotations

Copy a supplier’s price list or a quotation into a spreadsheet and work out totals with formulas.

Reports and financial statements

Take the figures out of an annual report or a government statistics PDF to make your own charts.

Thai documents

Convert Thai tables, including ones saved from a web browser, without losing tone marks, so you can search and sort the text.

What it can’t do

  • Scanned pages are pictures, so they have no text to read. Run OCR PDF on them first. The result of OCR can then be converted here.
  • Tables are found from lines and the gaps between columns. Very tight tables, where columns almost touch, can come out with two columns in one cell.
  • A table drawn as a picture, or a chart, can’t be turned into cells.
  • Colours, borders and fonts are not copied. You get the values and merged cells, and you can format them in Excel.
  • Text outside tables is only kept in “One sheet per page” and “One sheet for everything”.
  • Right-to-left tables, such as Arabic and Hebrew, have not been tested enough yet. Check the column order.
  • Password-protected PDFs, and PDFs whose owner has blocked copying, can’t be converted.

Questions about converting PDF to Excel

Is my PDF uploaded?

No. pdfMB converts the file inside your browser, and it never leaves your device. You can check this in your browser’s network tools.

Will the numbers work in formulas?

Yes. Numbers, percentages, amounts of money and dates are saved as values, not as text, so SUM and other formulas work straight away. Codes that start with 0 stay as text so the zeros are kept.

Does it work with tables that have no lines?

Yes. Columns are found from the gaps that line up down the table. Check the result, because a very tight layout can join two columns.

What happens to a table that goes over several pages?

In “One sheet per table” it is joined into one sheet when the columns line up, and the header row that repeats on each page is kept only once.

Can it convert a scanned PDF?

Not directly. Make the scan readable with OCR PDF first, then convert the new PDF here.

Which programs can open the file?

The .xlsx file opens in Microsoft Excel, LibreOffice Calc, Google Sheets, Apple Numbers and other spreadsheet programs.

Is there a page or size limit?

There is no fixed limit. Long documents take longer, and very large files can run out of memory on some phones.