How to Automate PDF Data Extraction to Excel

Millions of people use the PDF format every day to send and receive important information. PDF files are extremely useful because the text, tables, images, and anything else inside look the same no matter what device or software you use. However, oftentimes you need to move the table data in a PDF to another format like Excel, Word, etc. And since manual data entry is too tedious and costly, you’ll have to resort to PDF data extraction to Excel.

There are still plenty of ways of extracting your data from PDFs files and putting it into an Excel spreadsheet. I’m going to show you three different methods and explain which is the most viable.

1. Import data directly from PDF to Excel

You may or may not know about this, but Excel has a convenient feature that lets you scrape tabular data from a PDF file into your worksheet. To do this, just follow these simple steps:

1. Open your spreadsheet and click on the ‘Data’ tab;
2. Click on ‘Get Data’ on the left side;
3. Move your cursor to ‘From File’ and select the option ‘From PDF’;
4. Locate your file on your hard drive and click on ‘Import’;
5. Specify the page and table you want, then click on ‘Load’.

Excel will then pull the table that you selected from the PDF. This method is very simple and quick, but it has a couple of drawbacks. First, how good the result is depends on the complexity of the document and table selected. Sometimes Excel won’t extract data with complete accuracy so you’ll have to edit it afterward. And second, if you have dozens of incoming PDFs to process every day, this method is not very efficient.

2. Use a PDF to Excel converter

There is a large number of PDF to Excel converters that you can use to extract data. Most of the time, they are very easy to use. Basically, you upload your file, choose the conversion option you want, start the process, wait for a few moments, and download your converted file.

Feel free to Google “PDF to Excel converter” and try some of the conversion tools you’ll find. Most of them can extract tables accurately, however you might encounter some limitations while using them, such as:

• Word or characters that need manual editing;
• Formatting inaccuracies, like empty lines that weren’t supposed to be there or misaligned columns/rows;
• The converter extracts data you don’t want to have in your Excel spreadsheet;
• The converter puts a hard limit on how many documents you can convert (e.g. only two documents per hour, or only one document at a time).

Most PDF to Excel converters are designed for occasional needs, which makes them inefficient for organizations that must process big numbers of PDF files every day. In other words, you need a PDF data extraction to Excel tool that allows for scalability.

And this brings us to the third and last method.

3. Automate PDF data extraction to Excel with an intelligent data extraction tool

Alright, so ideally you would automate PDF data extraction to Excel as opposed to setting up the data extraction process for every single PDF and then spend time afterward cleaning up the extracted data. To that end, you need a tool that allows you to:

1. Specify which data you want to extract and which you don’t want to;
2. Extract data with complete accuracy so you won’t have to spend extra time editing your spreadsheet before you can even use it;
3. Convert entire batches of PDF files to Excel, in a single spreadsheet if you want to;
4. Extract tables from both native and scanned PDF documents;
5. Automate the whole data entry process, save time, and drive down costs.

Well, it turns out automation tools have come a long way. Now, you can use an intelligent data extraction tool that lets you do all of the points listed above and even more. This is the best method because it has none of the limitations of the other two, while also providing a lot more freedom and convenience in how you want your table data to be extracted.

Closing Thoughts

Manual data entry is simply not viable anymore in today’s world. You need information to move fast from point A to point B in order to be competitive and serve customers quickly. But not any data extraction tool is a good fit for your needs. You want to invest in a solution that is both flexible and scalable, allowing data to move freely from PDF to Excel with little to no direct input. You will save countless hours of tedious works, cut down operational costs, and significantly streamline your workflows.

One such solution is Docparser, a leading web-based app for automated data capture. If you want to learn how to use Docparser to automate PDF data extraction to Excel, we recommend you read this blog post. If you have any questions about data extraction, leave a comment below and we’ll get back to you.

Thank you for reading!