PDF To Excel Converter is a VB [Visual Basic] app that includes 1 VB support file [MSCOMCTL.OCX] in its program folder, & it registers it with Windows... that means that you can't move/remove that folder without breaking any other VB apps that use MSCOMCTL.OCX. There's an easy cure -- or fix if you already installed/uninstalled it... Chances are you already have this file in Windows system folder [32 bit Windows = Windows\System32 & in this case 64 bit = Windows\SysWOW64], & if not just copy it there. Download Regdrop [ http://goo.gl/OZjtZ ], put the un-zipped file on your desktop, & set it to run as admin in Vista/7 [rite=click -> Properties -> Compatibility]. Now using Windows' Explorer, drag MSCOMCTL.OCX on top of Regdrop.exe (clicking OK as nec.). Done. MSCOMCTL.OCX is registered where it should be -- as a bonus PDF to Excel Converter is now portable, so you can put it wherever you want, & it'll run on most any Windows PC as long as it has MSCOMCTL.OCX registered -- most do.

That out of the way [for those that want to or have tried it], PDF To Excel Converter reads the text in a PDF file & tries to divide that text into however many spreadsheet cells. It's not perfect, but if you read the reviews no PDF to spreadsheet app is -- IMHO it's more a matter of if it's useful to you & if not try Zamzar [ http://goo.gl/NC8L ] as Ashraf suggested, bearing in mind that mileage converting PDFs varies depending on the source PDF, how it was created, & with what app. Note that McAfee Site Advisor gives Zamzar an Orange rating due to 3 pop-ups.

Installing PDF to Excel Converter puts it's program folder [~11 MB, 17 files, 2 folders] in C:\ by default -- that location's frowned on, but it's more a best practice sort of thing than an ironclad rule. Installation also adds an uninstall key to the registry, & registers that VB file, which accounts for most of the recorded 134 registry entries that are changed when/if MSCOMCTL.OCX has already been installed.

I agree with the multiple comments regarding bad layout and conversion. I can copy/paste the text and get the same results. In a program such as this, I would expect it to keep at least some of the tables and formatting.

Be advised that there are two PDF passwords, the user password and the owner password. The user password is used to encrypt the document contents; if the user password is set, you can't view the document without it. The owner password allows you to edit the document and change i.e. copy permissions. Because you don't need the owner password to view the document, the owner password is easily removed by i.e. "printing" the document to a new PDF file with Ghostscript. Of course, the copy is also free of the user password, which is only needed to decrypt the original PDF content. All that is lost by doing this is embedded Javascript, which is rarely present since Javascript has been a recurring security hole in Adobe Acrobat.

In other words, you can rely on the user password to restrict who can view a document, but the owner password is useless to prevent someone from changing the document permissions, and neither prevents someone with the user password from making an unencrypted duplicate of the document.

Made a simple spreadsheet and converted it to pdf format for testing. Then, used this product to convert the pdf back to a spreadsheet format.

Results:

* No text formatting was kept.
* Original merged & centered title was put into first column.
* Tabular columns were recognized, but also moved to begin at first column, causing some misalignment.

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Conclusion based on this test:


So basically, the program converts the pdf to straight text format, recognizing & formatting tabular data into rows and columns -- although not always properly aligned.

Program seems to be useful for facilitating multiple conversions, but will still require format editing afterward. However, that is not to say that it will work this well converting all pdf documents. At least it seems to be easier than copying & pasting from pdf to spreadsheet numerous times.

Considering the universal difficulty of converting from pdf to any other format, I think this worked well as should be expected. My research on pdf converting shows that there is no known ideal solution to this problem, anyway. Therefore, I consider this software generally as good as most other similar software -- worth trying if needed.

@5:

Copy and paste does (in general) work from PDF to another file, unless:

(a) PDF is protected from doing copy/paste, or
(b) PDF doesn't contain text, as when it is made from a picture and OCR failed or wasn't used -- but then you ought to be able to copy the picture and paste it elsewhere, or
(c) your PDF reader doesn't support copy and paste

re: converting encrypted PDF: if it is encrypted and you DON'T know the password, you are right, it shouldn't work; but I think the issue is more about when you know the password (and therefore should have access to the content). Of course, if your password doesn't give you complete access to the PDF, conversion could fail.

Remember, PDF is primarily a page-layout format, not a text-manipulation format. That is the reason it is so hard to get text out of a PDF. The solution is easy: use PDF for page-layout (e.g. to send something to the printer), and use something more appropriate for text manipulation.

PDF is a print-only medium, with some hacks around for trying to make it handle text. Today's Giveaway is just such a hack. What is amazing is that it works at all; expecting it to work well, let alone with 100% accuracy, is unrealistic.

#5 - It does work in foxit and adobe. pdfexchange is even better.

Conversion is poor.

#1 - The fact that it can't convert encrypted PDFs is in my mind a good thing else why encript.
#4 - Copy & Paste does not work on a PDF file with a simple PDF reader.

Good old copy-paste works better than this software. The layout is really poor.

Installed on win7 64bit ultimate and works.
But it drops all pictures from the pdf and does not keep the layout.
to me it just copied all the text into a .xls file.
I think it should also caputre the graphics to be any use.

Thanks GOTD for sharing this kind of software.
Good application to convert PDF to Excel, but a bit expensive and not support to extract tables from PDF files. It would be preferable if it could be cheaper and add more functions.

simpo pdf is a good choice comparing with this converter for normal use.

Anyway, we can download it totally free today. Thanks again for GOTD.

The Good
* Straightforward and easy to use.
* Users are allowed to convert whole PDFs or a select range of pages.
* Supports batch processing.
* Supports drag + drop.
* Does not require Microsoft Office/Excel installed to use.

The Bad
* Poor conversion accuracy/output quality.
* Cannot convert encrypted PDFs.
* Overwrites existing image files of the same name and same format in the output folder without prompt.
* Attempts to install directly into C:/ partition by default as opposed to C:/Program Files.
* Users are not allowed to pick if they want .XLS or .XLSX output format.

Free Alternatives
Zamzar

For final verdict, recommendations, and full review please click here.