Foxit Convert PDF to Excel: Whole File or One Table

Quick Answer: In Foxit PDF Editor, open the PDF, go to the Convert tab and choose To MS Office > Excel (or File > Export). Click Settings in the save dialog to pick the page range, the decimal and thousands separators, and whether you get one worksheet for the document, one per table or one per page, then click Save. To grab a single table, select it with Select Text and Image, right-click and choose Export Selection As.

Foxit PDF Editor gives you two ways into Excel: export the whole document (or a page range), or draw a box around one table and export just that area. Both write an .xlsx workbook, both accept the same settings, and both depend on the PDF having real text. Scans need Foxit's Recognize Text step first, and most outputs need light tidying in Excel afterwards.

Whole document or selected area: which should you use?

Start by deciding how much of the PDF you actually need.

Area export is underrated. When a page mixes commentary, a chart and a small table, exporting the full page gives you all three crammed into cells, and you spend longer deleting than you saved.

How do you export a full PDF to Excel in Foxit PDF Editor?

These steps follow Foxit's Windows guide, Export PDFs to spreadsheets:

1. Open the PDF in Foxit PDF Editor.
2. Go to Convert > To MS Office > Excel. You can also reach the same export through File > Export, or with File > Save As and the spreadsheet file type. Choose XML Spreadsheet 2003 only if an old system requires it.
3. In the dialog, type a file name and choose a folder. Tick View Result if you want the workbook to open as soon as it is ready. (Organizations using document management or cloud storage can pick Save to ECM instead.)
4. Click Settings to adjust the conversion. The options are explained in the next section.
5. Click Save.

Which Foxit settings change the result?

The settings dialog is short, and every option in it has a visible effect on the workbook.

Page Range

Restrict the export to the pages that hold data. Cover pages, terms and conditions, and appendices only add rows you will delete.

Numeric Settings

Foxit can auto detect decimal and thousands separators from the document, or you can choose treat the following as decimal and thousands separators and set them yourself. Auto-detection is usually right for documents in your own locale. For a PDF from another country, set them by hand: a German invoice printing 2.450,00 needs comma as the decimal and period as the thousands mark, or the values arrive as text or as the wrong magnitude.

Excel Workbook Settings

• Create single Worksheet for the Document puts everything on one tab. Choose this for long tables that continue page after page.
• Create Worksheet for each Table splits tables onto separate tabs.
• Create Worksheet for each Page mirrors the PDF page by page, which helps when each page is an independent form.

Text Recognition Settings

For image-heavy PDFs, Foxit recommends the Convert to editable documents option and lets you pick the recognition languages with Set Languages. Restore Defaults puts every option back if you have experimented too far.

How do you export just one table?

Foxit's Export selected area feature takes five steps:

1. Choose the Select Text and Image command.
2. Drag a rectangle around the table.
3. Right-click inside the selection and choose Export Selection As….
4. In the Save As dialog, set the file type to Excel, name the file and pick a folder. The Settings button offers the same options as a full export.
5. Click Save.

Draw the rectangle tight to the table but include its column headings, so the first row of the sheet carries the field names. If a table continues onto the next page, export each page's portion and paste the second block under the first in Excel.

How do you handle a scanned PDF in Foxit?

Run text recognition before exporting. Foxit's Recognize Text guide describes the process:

1. Click Convert > Recognize Text > Current File.
2. Set the page range.
3. Choose the document's language; you can select more than one.
4. Pick an output type. Editable Text turns the scan into real PDF text and is the best preparation for an Excel export. Searchable Image Text keeps the picture with an invisible text layer, which is fine for searching but less predictable for tables.
5. With Editable Text, enable recognition of line segments if the document has ruled tables; the grid lines then help Foxit find cell borders.
6. Tick Find All Suspect to review characters Foxit is unsure of, then click OK.

Review the suspects before exporting. A single misread digit in an amount column will not trigger any error in Excel, so this is your last cheap chance to catch it.

Does Foxit have a free online PDF to Excel converter?

Yes. Foxit's online PDF to Excel page converts one file at a time with no account: drag in the PDF, click Start Conversion, then Download Your File to get an .xlsx. It has no page-range, separator or worksheet settings, and batch conversion needs the desktop editor. Like any web converter, it means handing the file to a third party, so keep confidential documents in the desktop app.

What usually needs fixing afterwards?

Even good exports leave a few marks. Work through this list in Excel:

1. Repeated column titles. If you chose a single worksheet, the heading row from each page appears in the data. Filter the first column for the heading text and delete those rows.
2. Continuation lines. Text that wrapped in the PDF can become its own row. Look for rows with a description but no number and join them to the row above.
3. Text-formatted numbers. Left-aligned figures with a green corner triangle are text. Use the warning menu's Convert to Number, or multiply the column by 1 with Paste Special.
4. Dates in the wrong order. If 05/06 became 6 May instead of 5 June, use Data > Text to Columns, choose the Date column type and set the order (DMY or MDY) that the PDF used.
5. Empty spacer columns. Converters sometimes insert thin blank columns where the PDF had extra whitespace. Delete them so formulas and imports line up.

Then reconcile: add up a numeric column and compare it with a total printed in the PDF. For a fuller symptom-and-cause table, see convert PDF to Excel without losing formatting.

Is Foxit a good fit for bank statements?

It can handle them, but statements are where general converters struggle most: balances in the far column, merchant names that wrap, and debits and credits in separate columns. Expect to do most of the fixes above every month. If statements are your main use, a statement-specific tool skips that work. QuickBankConvert reads the transaction table itself and returns date, description and a signed amount per row, with a free on-screen preview; the PDF to Excel page shows the output. To weigh Foxit against other editors, read software to convert PDF to Excel.

Related guides

• Nitro PDF to Excel converter
• Adobe Acrobat PDF to Excel
• Convert a PDF table to Excel