We often need to work with data received in the form of a PDF file. Show You might have a scanned copy of important data that you need to process in Google Sheets, or you may want to work on a dataset received from someone or downloaded from a website in PDF form. Unfortunately, there is no way to directly open a PDF in Google Sheets, or convert one to a format that can be processed in a Google worksheet. There are, however, ways to indirectly get your data into a Google Sheet. In this tutorial, we will discuss different ways to convert PDF files to Google Sheets format.
How to Convert PDF to Google SheetsAt this point, there are largely two ways to convert PDF files to Google Sheets format:
Let us look at each of these methods one by one. Related reading: How to Convert PDF to Word on Mac [5 Easy Ways] Using Google Docs to Convert PDF to Google SheetsLet’s say you have the following PDF file saved somewhere on your computer hard disk. If you want to open this file in Google Sheets, here’s what you have to do:
Your PDF file’s table contents should now be visible in Google Sheets, and you can subsequently work on this data as required. When using this method, there are a few important points to note though:
If the data is in plain text, then you might need to first convert the data into CSV format. Converting PDF to CSV and Then Opening with Google SheetsThis might be a little bit of a long process and might require a little more effort on your part. Here are the steps that you need to follow in case you come across such a PDF file: Use Google Drive to upload the File:
Use Google Sheets to Save the File as a Plaintext File (.txt)
Use Notepad to Save the File as a Comma Separated Value File (.csv)
Now all that’s left to do is open the CSV file in Google Sheets Use Google Sheets to Open the CSV File
You will notice every value that you separated with commas now occupies individual cells in Google Sheets. You can now work on the contents of the file and process the data as you need to. Note: You might need to do a little more work to clean up the data by removing extra blank cells, removing hidden or illegible characters, formatting date values, etc. Using Third-Party Applications / Online Tools to Convert PDF to Google SheetsEven though Google Sheets does not provide an easy way to convert PDF files to a format that Google Sheets understands, there are a number of applications and online tools available to get this done quickly and easily. In this section, we will discuss some of these tools. Using Google Workspace Marketplace (PDF Tables Extractor) to Convert PDF to Google SheetsThe PDF Tables Extractor is a Google application designed to extract tables from a PDF file. It extracts all tables in the file, making sure it retains the row and column structure of the tables. It then converts the file into a CSV format that you can directly edit. It also displays the extracted (and edited) table in the form of an HTML table within the browser. You can easily copy this table into Google Sheets directly. This app can be used to extract tables from PDF files both on your Google drive and well as your local hard disk. Here are the steps that you need to follow in order to use the PDF Tables Extractor to convert your PDF file to Google Sheets:
Using Online2pdf to Convert PDF to Google SheetsOnline2pdf is a free online tool that lets you edit, convert, and compress PDF files. The great thing about this tool is that it can work with both native as well as scanned PDF files. This means whether the contents are in table format or in plaintext, the tool will help you quickly extract, convert and export it into Google Sheets. Here are the steps that you need to follow in order to use Online2pdf to convert your PDF file to Google Sheets:
Besides this, there are a number of other online tools available to help you quickly convert your PDF files to a format usable and editable in Google Sheets. Some of these other sites include Convertpdf2excel (https://pdfchef.com/pdf-to-excel.html), Altoconvertpdftoexcel (https://altoconvertpdftoexcel.com/) and many more. A quick Google search will give you a number of other options. You can select the platform that you are most comfortable with and get your job done in a jiffy. We hope this tutorial was helpful for you. Other Google Sheets tutorials you may also like:
SumitSpreadsheet Expert at Productivity Spot | Website | + posts Google Sheets and Microsoft Excel Expert. Can you convert a PDF to Excel on Google?Find the Convert PDF to Excel extension in the upper right corner of the browser and click it, and click the "PDF to Excel" icon in the pop-up window. 3. Select or drag the file you want to convert to the dotted frame area,The file will automatically start uploading and converting.
Does Google Docs have a PDF converter?Our software is able to do this and allows you to convert files into PDF format which are located both inside your computer or on your Google Drive Instructions to convert files into PDF format Choose the files you wish to convert into PDF. These PDF files can be located on Google Drive or your computer.
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