Copy Table

[YD Forums]

I have looked for, and not found, a way to copy a table from PDF to Word or Excel using PDF-Xchange Editor.

Can it be done?

Thanks

[Stefan - PDF-XChange]

Hello YD Forums,

Can you share a sample with us? Is it an interactive form with fillable form fields, or just data arranged as if it is in a table (or maybe it was before it was converted to PDF)?

The PDF structure does not have an internal definition of a 'table' per se - so when we do a conversion we try to recognize where there is table data, and if the format we are converting to supports tables - we will try to make one for you. If you can get us a sample - we will see to show you how to convert that to a table with data in it in Word or Excel if possible!

Kind regards,
Stefan

[YD Forums]

Hi Stefan,

Attached is a simple table created in MS word and saved as PDF.

Sample table.pdf

When I select the contents of the table in PDF X-Change and paste into Word, it pastes as unstructured text.

PDF X-Change Table to Word.jpg

When I paste into Excel, the table contents paste into nine rows, as they should, but in a single column (columns 1 and 2 combined, regardless of how many cells/columns I select before pasting.

PDF X-Change Table to Excel.jpg

On the other hand, if I open the PDF in Adobe Acrobat (in this case XI Standard), select the table, and select Copy with formatting (see attached capture), it pastes as a table in Word, and in 9 rows by 2 columns in Excel.

Copy table in Acrobat XI.jpg

Acrobat Table to Word.jpg

Acrobat Table to Excel.jpg

It would be great if PDF X-Change could do that too.

[Daniel - PDF-XChange]

Hello, YD Forums

Thank you for bringing this up, At this time we do not have a method to copy the table formatting in full, but for editing tables directly in the Editor, we do offer new table detection features, which you can enable from the preferences:

image.png

Beyond that, I have passed this topic along to the Dev team for review, hopefully we can improve in this area in a future release.

RT#6956: FR: Convert Tables from pdf to Rich/Plain Text properly

Kind regards,