Get ready to convert PDF to Google Sheets! There are many reasons why people use Google Sheets for personal and business needs. Well, the same can be said for PDF’s. So we decided it was time to marry these two in a blog post and describe how to export data from a PDF to your Google Sheets account using Docparser.

Moving table rows from PDF to a Google Spreadsheet is a popular use-case amongst Docparser users. Making PDF table data accessible to the team in a Google Sheet (price lists, shipping reports, etc.) is just the first step. Once your PDF table data isinside a Google Sheet, the possibilities to are endless thanks to the scripting and automation capabilities of Google Sheets. At Docparser, we see companies using Google Sheets as the their data backbone for procurement (invoice, purchase orders, delivery orders, …) and logistic related processes.

How to extract tables from PDF files

Without the right tools at hand, moving table data from PDF to Google Sheets can be complicated. A complex toolchain is sometimes needed, including a OCR PDF Scanner, Zonal OCR and advanced table extraction filters.

Luckily, Docparser combines all those tools in one easy to use software! Our free account option lets you create a fully automated workflow which moves your PDF tables to Google Sheets in real-time. Have a look at the screencast below which shows you how easy it is to extract tables from PDF files with Docparser

Easily convert PDF to Google Sheets with Docparser

The steps below show you how you can easily convert PDF to Google sheet using our Docparser platform. Usually, going from Zero to Hero should not take longer than 20 minutes. Our app will guide you through the different steps as well and we provide additional screencasts once you signed up for your free account.

1. Create a free Docparser account
2. Upload your first PDF documents
3. Create table parsing rules for your data (see below)
4. Create a new Google Sheet in your Google Account and populate the first row with column names
5. Select “Integrations” from the left navigation inside the Docparser app and create a new Google Sheet Integration
6. Once you select the newly created Google Sheet, you will be provided “Field Mapping”, where you will select the column names from the data you extracted, and map it to the names of the columns from step
7. Click “Save & Test”, then “Test” again on the next prompt after mapping is properly completed.

Many of the steps stated above are combined in one app interface, it is actually quite a simple process. The final product (a Google Sheet that has your data dumped in), is displayed below in a split screen “mini screen-cast”. The data sent to the sheet below, is from the data parsed in the screen shot directly above.

The final result: A fully automated PDF to Google Sheet workflow

Once you followed the steps listed above, you have a fully automated workflow at your fingertips. Each time you upload a similar PDF document to Docparser, our parsing engine will extract all table rows and automatically moves the data to Google Sheets.

But this is just the beginning. You can also automate the way how you import PDF documents to Docparser. You can either email new documents to your Docparser account, import documents from your cloud storage or use our REST API (in case you are a developer).

Done, it’s that easy to convert PDF to Google Sheets! By following the steps above you created a fully automated workflow which will convert your PDF files to table rows which are added to a Google Sheet in real-time. Please contact us should you need any assistance converting your pdf to a Google Sheet.