ABBYY FineReader alternatives for PDF to Excel

1. ExtractFox

A browser tool and REST API that reads PDFs, scans and photos with a multimodal model and returns a table you can download as Excel, CSV or JSON. There are no templates or parsers to set up, and an extraction counts per file, not per page. It doesn't parse email inboxes and has no Zapier, Make or webhook connectors yet.

Best for: PDFs, scans and photos to Excel, CSV or JSON without templates

2. Adobe Acrobat

Every Acrobat plan exports PDFs to Excel; turning scans into editable PDFs is listed under Pro ($19.99/month on an annual plan, $29.99 month to month), not Standard. You get the whole page as a sheet, then tidy the columns yourself.

Best for: People who also edit, sign and combine PDFs

3. Excel: Data from Picture

Turns a picture of a table into cells, with a review step to fix mistakes before inserting. It works on Windows, Mac, the web and mobile, and supports 21 languages. Microsoft's help page doesn't mention PDFs, so a scanned PDF has to become an image first.

Best for: A single printed table you can photograph or screenshot

4. Excel: Power Query PDF connector

Lists the tables Excel finds in a PDF and loads the ones you pick, and the import refreshes when the PDF changes. Microsoft's documentation describes reading tables and doesn't mention OCR, so it suits PDFs exported from software rather than scans.

Best for: Text-based PDF reports with clean tables, refreshed regularly

5. Tabula

A free desktop app for Windows, Mac and Linux that pulls tables out of PDFs to CSV or Excel. Its own site says it only works on text-based PDFs, not scanned documents.

Best for: Text-based PDF tables, offline

Best tool to extract data from scanned pdf to excel

For a scanned PDF where you want a ready table, ExtractFox: upload the scan, pick the fields or describe them, and download an .xlsx. It needs no install and two extractions need no account. If you'd rather have desktop software that converts whole pages, ABBYY FineReader PDF (€99/year on Windows) and Adobe Acrobat Pro ($19.99/month on an annual plan) both do OCR.

Best free online ocr to convert pdf to excel

ExtractFox runs in the browser and gives two extractions without signup and 5 a month with a free account, on scanned and digital PDFs up to 50 MB. Excel's Data from Picture is free if you already have Microsoft 365 but takes one picture at a time. Tabula is free and open source but, by its own description, doesn't read scanned documents.

Extract tables from pdf to excel without copy paste

If the PDF was exported from software (text you can select), Excel's Power Query connector (Data > Get Data > From File > From PDF) or Tabula pull the tables straight in. If it's a scan or the table spans pages, ExtractFox reads it with a multimodal model and returns the rows as a table you can download as .xlsx or .csv.

Ai tool to extract data from images and photos into a spreadsheet

ExtractFox reads photos and scans (PNG, JPG, WEBP, HEIC up to 20 MB) and returns rows for Excel or CSV; paid plans take a batch of files at once. Excel's Data from Picture is the built-in option for a single table in a single picture.

Extract receipt data from photos to excel

ExtractFox's receipt extractor reads merchant, date, items, tax and total from receipt photos or PDFs and downloads them as Excel; on a paid plan you can upload a batch at once and get one row per receipt. Excel's Data from Picture can copy a receipt as a table, but you'd shape each one into columns yourself.

Convert bank statement pdf to excel online with ai

ExtractFox's bank statement extractor turns digital or scanned statements into transaction rows with dates, descriptions, amounts and balances, ready for Excel or CSV. Review the rows before downloading; on statements with unusual layouts check the running balance against the statement.