pdf table extraction

Back to Blog Table of contents On this page Extract Tables From PDF and Scanned Documents Home › Blog › PDF › Extract Tables From PDF and Scanned Documents Categories PDF Tags ocr api pdf table extraction table extraction from pdf By Shubhankar Biswas Published October 13, 2025, 11:34 Updated July 20, 2026, 07:49 Extracting tables from PDF documents is always a tedious task, especially when the documents are scanned PDFs. Even when the documents are computer-generated PDFs, it can still be a complex and annoying task, since copying a tabular text from a PDF and pasting it to an Excel spreadsheet is not always as simple as it may look. Moreover, manual data entry with human interaction involves errors in addition to wasting time. How to convert PDF or scanned tables to Excel spreadsheets? There are free online tools that you can use to convert PDF tables to Excel spreadsheets if the PDF document is a text document (not scanned). Even for system-generated PDF documents, those tools just convert a table to Excel as is, without letting you filter a table and convert it into the format you need. Especially when tables span over multiple pages of a PDF, you definitely need to trim out all unnecessary text that occurs between pages, like footer and header information. Moreover, sometimes you might need to filter out either some rows or even columns of a table itself. Imagine table extraction from scanned documents! What if those scanned documents are of low quality? Alternatively, even worse, what if those documents are images taken by a mobile device… Yes, then the task of extracting a table from such documents gets even harder… Algodocs comes to the rescue! Extract tables from PDF and scanned documents with Algodocs Algodocs allows you to extract tables from PDF or scanned documents of any complexity thanks to its flexible extracting rules. Additionally, you can convert the table into the format you need with no coding at all. With Algodocs, you can extract invoice line items, purchase order product lists, bank statement transactions, and any other financial or custom documents that contain tables. Algodocs offers a free subscription plan forever with 50 pages per month. You may check our pricing for paid subscriptions based on your document processing requirements. Algodocs has a user-friendly interface and an easy-to-use extracting rules editor. You can set up extracting rules in minutes for extracting tables from your documents. The following are the steps to follow when extracting tables from documents in Algodocs: Create an extractor by uploading a sample document In the extracting rules editor, add a rule by selecting ‘Table’ as the data type Place column separators on the table Click on the ‘Extract’ button to extract the table and apply various filters to refine and convert the extracted table into the format you need Finally, export extracted tables to Excel or JSON You may watch the screencast video tutorials below on table extraction from documents. You can check out our Video Tutorials section for more videos. In the following screencast video, we demonstrate how you can extract tables, which are in fixed or variable positions, from PDF or scanned documents. In the following screencast video, we demonstrate how you can extract tables that span over multiple pages in a PDF. In the following screencast video, we demonstrate how you can use the ‘Merge Rows’ filter to extract tables that contain rows with multiple lines. Moreover, you can benefit from integrations in Algodocs such as Google Drive, Dropbox, or Zapier, and automate your document data extraction workflow with Algodocs in minutes. Please contact us if you need any assistance. You Might Also Like Convert PDF to JSON – Convert PDF Documents to Structured JSON Objects Table of Contents Introduction Organizations in various industries widely use PDF documents, since no doubt PDF is a common document format for… Shubhankar Biswas October 13, 2025 What is a PDF Parser? A PDF Parser is a program or a library that enables end-users and organizations to parse data from native PDF documents. Often, organizations need to… Shubhankar Biswas October 13, 2025 PDF Data Extraction: The Best Tool and Techniques PDFs are ubiquitous in every organization, serving as the go-to format for sharing and exchanging business data. However, extracting, editing, or… Shubhankar Biswas October 13, 2025 Start extracting your data today No credit card required. Process up to 50 pages per month on the Forever Free plan. Book a Demo Get Started for Free