PDF to Excel

[Guest]

I downloaded the DC version, and tried to export a PDF to Excel.  I worked but it came out all jumbled and not readable?  The PDF is a Line Designation table and was created using Excel so I don't see why it didn't work as well as expected?

[girijaAgarwal]

Hi Cliff,

Could you please share the file @ agarwala@adobe.com

Regards,

Girija

[Karl Heinz Kremer]

Converting from PDF to Word, Excel or any other format is one of the most complex things you can try to do with a PDF file. It works very well in some cases, in other cases the output has very little to do with the original file. The key for success is that the PDF file needs to be "tagged" - which means that it contains information about the information that is displayed in the file. The best way to make sure that a PDF file is tagged correctly is by using the PDFMaker in Acrobat to create the PDF file from Word or Excel (that's the Acrobat ribbon or toolbar). If you just print to the "Adobe PDF" printer from within Excel, you are not getting the benefit of tagging.

Unfortunately there is not much you can do to improve the output without spending a lot of time (e.g. by manually tagging the file). Also, if you are using Adobe's ExportPDF service and don't have access to Acrobat, that is not even an option.

The only thing you can do is complain to the original author of the file and tell them that they used a bad PDF generator - or the wrong way - to create the PDF file.

[jane-e]

Go to File > Properties > Description and tell us what it says for Application.