Use this for tables, not arbitrary pages
PDF to Excel is table extraction. It looks for repeated baselines and aligned columns and refuses to turn ordinary narrative paragraphs into a garbage worksheet.
Start with searchable table text
The PDF must expose characters and positions. Scanned tables need OCR before their rows and columns can be detected.
Review detected structure
Repeated x positions, row baselines, whitespace, and consistent column counts provide conservative evidence. Each detected table receives a separate worksheet and preview.
Understand exported values
Visible values become editable cells. Displayed formula results are not reverse engineered into formulas, and leading formula characters are neutralized to prevent spreadsheet injection.
Check difficult tables
Merged headers, borderless tables, nested tables, rotated text, and multi-column prose can require manual cleanup or a specialist extraction tool.