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Purchase orders

Convert a purchase order PDF to Excel

Turn ordered items into structured rows for fulfilment, checking or system entry while keeping the original PDF on your device.

Updated . Written for PDFtoGrid; corrections welcome via About.

The short answer

To convert a purchase order PDF to Excel, record the PO number, buyer, delivery address, currency and requested date, load the line-item pages, separate line number, SKU, description, quantity, unit, unit price and extended amount, then export and repeat the PO-level fields on every item row.

  1. Check several rows: extended amount should equal quantity × unit price.
  2. Keep split delivery-schedule rows separate rather than combining quantities.
  3. Handwritten or scanned POs need OCR and careful manual review.
  4. Process POs separately and add a PO-number column before combining them.

Example: A row with quantity 12, unit price 3.50 and extended amount 42.00 checks out; 4.20 would show that a column shifted.

A purchase order usually has two data regions: document-level fields such as PO number, buyer and delivery date, followed by a line-item table. Extraction handles the table; you may need to repeat the document-level fields across every exported row.

Open the free PDF converter

Before you begin: Confirm the PO is authorised and current before acting on extracted data. A clean spreadsheet does not prove that the source document is valid.

Step-by-step workflow

  1. Open the PDF and record the PO number, buyer, delivery address, currency and requested date.
  2. Load the line-item pages into PDFtoGrid and exclude terms or instruction pages.
  3. Separate line number, SKU, description, quantity, unit, unit price and extended amount.
  4. Correct wrapped descriptions and verify the line count against the source.
  5. Export, then add the PO-level fields as columns repeated on every item row.

Check quantity versus price

Quantities and unit prices are often both right-aligned. Compare extended amount with quantity multiplied by unit price on several rows. A mismatch can reveal that columns merged or shifted.

Handle delivery schedules

Some POs split one item across several requested dates. Keep each schedule row separate rather than collapsing them into a single quantity, or fulfilment timing will be lost.

Prepare a clean import

Use the receiving system's exact field names, date format and units. Test one PO first. Keep the extracted file as a working copy and retain the PDF as the authoritative record.

Questions

Can it read handwritten purchase orders?

No. Handwriting and scanned forms need specialised OCR and careful manual review.

Can several POs go into one spreadsheet?

Yes, after processing separately. Add a PO-number column to every row before appending the files.

What should I verify before import?

PO number, supplier or buyer, SKU, quantity, unit, requested date, currency and the document total.

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