PDFtoGrid is a free tool for pulling tables out of PDF files and into spreadsheets. It exists because the alternative — retyping a forty-page transaction list, or handing a client's financials to an anonymous upload form — is a bad choice either way.
How it works
A PDF does not contain tables. It contains characters and the coordinates at which each one should be drawn. The converter reads those coordinates using Mozilla's open-source pdf.js engine, then rebuilds the table in three passes:
- Rows. Characters sharing a baseline, within a tolerance derived from the font size, are grouped into a line.
- Chunks. Within a line, neighbouring text runs separated by less than about two space widths are joined, so that a phrase stays intact.
- Columns. The left edges of every chunk on the page are clustered. Clusters that recur across enough rows become the column boundaries, and each chunk drops into the column it starts in.
The column spacing control on the home page adjusts the clustering tolerance in that third pass, which is why changing it re-shapes the table instantly without re-reading the file.
Why nothing is uploaded
All of that happens in your browser. The site has no upload endpoint, no storage bucket and no queue, and it does not need any of them. The practical result is that a confidential document stays on your machine, and once the converter's libraries have loaded (they load the first time you open a PDF), further conversions should keep working offline.
What it cannot do
It cannot read scanned documents, because a scan holds an image rather than text. It has no OCR. Tables with merged cells, nested headers or rotated text will need manual repair after export — the preview grid is editable for exactly that reason.
How it is funded
The site carries advertising through Google AdSense. There is no paid tier, no account, and no limit on how many files you convert. Ads are placed away from the tool controls so they do not interfere with using it.
Contact
Bug reports, PDFs that come out wrong, and feature requests:
hello@pdftogrid.online
Please describe the layout of the table rather than attaching the document — we would rather not receive your statements either.
PDFtoGrid is built with pdf.js and SheetJS, both open source.