Scanned PDF to Excel Converter (OCR)

Scanned PDFs need OCR, digital PDFs do not

A digital PDF stores its text, so you can select a word in it; a scanned PDF stores a picture of each page, so there is no text to select. Converters that copy the text layer return an empty or jumbled sheet for scans. OCR reads the page images instead and turns them into text and cells.

This converter reads every PDF this way, so it works the same whether the PDF came from a scanner, a phone scanning app or a printer's “save as PDF”. For a table that continues over several pages, the rows of every page are joined under one header.

Getting a clean result from a scan

• Scan at 200 to 300 DPI in grayscale. Higher resolutions add file size without improving small digits much.
• Keep the page straight and flat. Skewed or curled pages are the most common cause of misread numbers and shifted columns.
• Avoid shadows and coloured highlights over figures; they can hide decimal points and minus signs.
• Check totals, dates and IDs against the scan. OCR copies what it sees and does not correct or calculate values.

Pages and pricing

Each conversion takes one PDF of up to 20 pages. The first pages can be converted free once a day; converting every page uses credits per page, or a one-time pack with no subscription. See pricing.

Converting a bank statement? The bank statement converter is set up for transaction tables, and the bank statement password page helps open protected statements. To pull a single table out of a longer document, see extract tables from PDF. For digital PDFs and file format options, see the PDF to Excel converter.