copy a table from pdf as a table?

Question

How might I copy or export a table from a PDF document into Word, Excel, OneNote, etc. as a table instead of plain text?

Example pdf: ftp://ftp2.cits.rncan.gc.ca/pub/canvec/doc/CanVec_transition_guide_en.pdf, starting at page 9. I'm using Office 2003, OneNote trial 2007.

Integrated Answer

Free Online Services

www.freepdftoword.org - Does a reliable job of creating true tables objects in Word. Options for tailoring layout fidelity or text flow. Results are prompt. The service is email based, so there is the potential of opening yourself up to spam. The wizard does have an option to opt in/out of their newsletter.

www.pdfonline.com - visually faithful to original and retains table structure. Some cleanup needed as the pasted tables contain interleaved blank rows. Result is downloaded via browser (no email needed).

Free Desktop

OpenOffice with the PDF Import Extension. There is also a portable apps version.

KWord on linux, which requires virtual machine to use on Windows.

Commercial Software

Open the document with Adobe Acrobat . Click File > Save As. Select "HTML 4.01 with CSS 1.0 (*.htm, *.html)" in "Save as type", then save. Then open the saved HTML file in Microsoft Word, and it will be displayed as a table instead of plain text. (Note: not to be confused with the free Adobe Reader which can't do this).

Answer 1

www.freepdftoword.org - free online service. Does a reliable job of creating true tables objects in Word.

Answer 2

Open the document with Adobe Acrobat. Click File > Save As. Select "HTML 4.01 with CSS 1.0 (*.htm, *.html)" in "Save as type", then save.

You can then open the saved HTML file in Microsoft Word, and it will be displayed as a table instead of plain text.

Answer 3

This is a tough one. If you have the means, the easiest solution is going to be contacting the person who made the PDF. Chances are they made it from a .doc file. If you can get the original, you have what you need with no conversion necessary.

Answer 4

option 1: use an online pdf conversion service.

This post is a work in progress and will be updated as I try various services

Google Docs: didn't work, same result as select & copy text from Adobe Reader

http://www.convertpdftoword.net/ - visually very faithful to original, but table structure was lost with the text in myriad text-boxes instead. Order of magnitude file size increase, 130k to 4.3mb.

http://www.pdftoword.com/ - "Service Unavailable"

http://www.pdfonline.com/pdf2word/index.asp - success! visually faithful and retained table structure. Filesize actually decreased somewhat, 130k to 115k. Some cleanup needed as the pasted tables contain extra interleaved blank rows.

http://www.freepdfconvert.com/convert_pdf_to_source.asp - failed to convert. It thinks, wrongly, that the test pdf (from Q above) is password protected.

http://www.zamzar.com/ - visually faithful but table structure lost, requires email, filesize increased to 8mb(!)

pdf2html@adobe.com - tables retained, some column mixups, no images or colour, very little layout preservation.

Answer 5

option2: use the linux KWord application to import the pdf.

There isn't a Windows version available, but linux is easy to run on Windows under a virtual machine.

Answer 6

option 4: Use OpenOffice with the PDF Import Extension. There is also a portable apps version.