So you want to extract table rows from PDF documents and copy them to a spreadsheet? Yes, convert PDF to Excel or Google Sheets easily and quickly. You probably already figured out that a simple copy & paste doesn’t work reliably or just takes way too much time. So let’s automate this process by letting Mailparser convert your PDF tables into easy to handle spreadsheet data.

This article shows you how you can convert a PDF to Excel Spreadsheet with Mailparser. We’ll also cover how to automatically send rows from PDF tables to an auto-updating Google Docs Spreadsheet. Sounds good? Alright, let’s dive into it!

*Note: If you are looking for a solution dedicated to converting PDF to Excel, JSON, CSV, XML or sending to Google Sheets, we have exciting news for you! We recently launched a service dedicated to PDF document parsing. Check out Docparser.

WHY MANUAL COPY & PASTE FAILS WHEN IT COMES TO CONVERTING TABLES FROM PDF TO EXCEL

Probably you receive data which is important for your business in form of PDF tables on a daily basis. Or you have a pile of old files sitting around on your hard drive. In either way, you probably experienced already how painful it is to manually transferring data from PDF tables into a spreadsheet.

Possible reasons why doing the data transfer from PDF to Excel or Google Docs are listed below. They are probably familiar to you. Or maybe you experienced other problems not listed below? Let us know!

• The data is actually not stored as a table inside the PDF but just as plain text which looks like a table
• The table spans over multiple pages and you end up copying page headers and footers when selecting multiple pages
• Hidden table cells or characters become visible once you paste the data into Excel
• The data is scattered over multiple files. Opening each file manually just takes too much time

CONVERT PDF TO EXCEL SPREADSHEETS FULLY AUTOMATED AND RELIABLE

Extract data from pdf to a database (or Spreadsheet) is actually a use-case we see quite often at Mailparser since we introduced the possibility to parse data from e-mail attachments. And today, we are happy to announce an easy to use, fully automated solution to this problem!

Our engineering team was hard at work to create a simple to use solution which lets you automatically extract data from pdf to Excel or Google Spreadsheets. It’s now easy to send PDF files to Mailparser as an e-mail attachment and get parsed table cells back in return. Next to extracting table rows, it’s also possible to parse single data fields which are maybe trapped in the header area of your files.

Using mailparser.io to pull table rows from PDF files means that you’ll have a fully automated workflow. After the initial setup, all you need to do is to forward your PDF files to a @mailparser.io e-mail address. Mailparser will then pull out the table rows for you and copy them to your Google Spreadsheet instantly. Sounds interesting? Read on to learn how this works!

HOW TO EXTRACT DATA FROM PDF TO EXCEL

Let’s stop beating around the bush, here is how you can create a fully automated workflow which converts your PDF tables into a Google Spreadsheet. The workflow is based on mailparser.io which will take care of parsing the table cells from your PDF and once set up, the only thing you need to do on a regular basis is to forward your files to your private @mailparser.io e-mail address.

• Sign-up for a free account at Mailparser
• Confirm your email address
• Create a @mailparser.io inbox to which you will send your files by e-mail
• Create a parsing rule which will extract table rows from your PDF file
• Add more parsing rules to parse other data fields from the PDF (e.g. Date of Order, Delivery Address, …)
• Create a connection between your Mailparser inbox and Google Docs (Webhook Integration)
• Test it and see the magic happen!

So how does this sound to you? Easy, right!? If you want to give it a try, don’t hesitate and create a free subscription and give it a spin. And if there is anything we can help you with, send us an e-mail and we’ll get back to you right away.