Drop in any scanned PDF, faxed copy, photo of paper documents, or image-based PDF — and get a clean Excel file. Built-in OCR handles thermal print, faded ink, low-resolution scans, handwritten annotations, and partial crops.
Convert your first scanned PDF — free
A scanned PDF is just an image wrapped in a PDF container — there's no embedded text layer, so generic PDF-to-Excel converters can't read a single character. They produce empty spreadsheets or garbage data. The standard answer is 'run it through OCR first' — which means installing Acrobat Pro or signing up for an enterprise OCR service before you can extract anything.
And once you have OCR'd text, you still have to extract structured data from it. The OCR gives you words on a page; getting transactions into rows and columns is a separate problem. Two tools, two paywalls, two manual steps.
PDFExcel runs OCR automatically the moment it detects a scanned PDF — no separate workflow, no quality setting, no 'export OCR text' intermediate step. The OCR pipeline is tuned specifically for the documents accountants and bookkeepers handle: bank statements, invoices, receipts, tax forms, payroll stubs.
Once the document is OCR'd, the same AI that reads native PDFs reads the OCR text and pulls structured data — dates in date columns, amounts in numeric columns, vendor names rejoined when they wrap. The accuracy on a clean 300 DPI scan is within 1-2% of a native PDF; lower-quality scans (phone photos, faxed copies, faded thermal) work too, with an occasional row that benefits from a quick visual review.
The model treats scanned and native PDFs the same way at the extraction layer — OCR is an invisible step, not a separate workflow. You drop in a PDF, you get a spreadsheet.
Most OCR tools stop at 'here's your text, now figure out the structure yourself.' PDFExcel does both in one upload — and the OCR is tuned for finance documents specifically.
OCR is invisible. Drop in a scanned bank statement, get back the same structured table you'd get from a native PDF — dates in date columns, amounts in numeric columns.
| # | Date | Description | Debit | Credit | Balance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 03/02/2025 | Opening Balance | $8,412.55 | ||
| 2 | 03/04/2025 | DEPOSIT — INVOICE 2102 | $3,200.00 | $11,612.55 | |
| 3 | 03/07/2025 | CHECK #1018 — Pacific Insurance | $1,142.00 | $10,470.55 | |
| 4 | 03/11/2025 | ACH WITHDRAWAL — VENDOR PAY | $485.00 | $9,985.55 | |
| 5 | 03/15/2025 | DEBIT CARD — OFFICE DEPOT | $78.42 | $9,907.13 |
CPAs receiving year-end client envelopes scanned from paper, bookkeepers handling small-business clients without digital banking, lenders verifying paperwork from manual statement requests, attorneys with discovery PDFs.
Client hands over twelve months of paper statements, scanned to one PDF per month. Upload the year as one ZIP, get back a single workbook with each month as a tab — ready for trial-balance prep.
Restaurant client doesn't use digital banking — every month a stack of paper statements gets scanned and emailed. Convert each statement to QuickBooks-ready CSV, import for reconciliation.
Discovery production includes 400 pages of scanned bank records. Bulk-convert to Excel, search/filter to identify specific transactions for the case exhibit.
No. OCR runs automatically when the PDF doesn't have an embedded text layer. There's no 'OCR mode' to toggle and no quality slider — the pipeline picks the right settings based on the input.
On a clean 300 DPI scan, accuracy is typically within 1-2% of a native PDF — usually 99%+ on critical fields like dates, amounts, and EINs. On phone photos of crumpled paper or faded thermal receipts, accuracy drops a few percentage points and we recommend a visual spot-check on critical fields.
Yes — same flat pricing as native PDFs. 10 documents per month free, forever. OCR doesn't cost extra. Plans from $69/month for 50 documents.
Printed/typed handwriting (block-style) usually works. Cursive handwriting is hit-or-miss — the OCR will attempt it but you should review handwritten fields. Most receipts have printed amounts even when there's a handwritten signature or note.
Yes. Faxed PDFs are typically lower-resolution (200 DPI or less) than scanned PDFs but the OCR handles them — you may see a few more spot-check candidates on critical fields, but the document still extracts into structured rows.