Converting PDF Documents From Within Microsoft Excel

When you install ABBYY PDF Transformer 2.0, the setup program integrates it with Windows Explorer and with Microsoft Office. As a result, ABBYY PDF Transformer buttons appear in Microsoft Excel.

To convert a PDF file from within Microsoft Excel:

  1. Run Microsoft Excel.
  2. Click the Transform PDF button on the toolbar. In the dialog box that opens, select the file you wish to convert and click Open PDF File.
    Note: If the PDF file is password-protected, the program will ask you for the password. If you type an invalid password three times, the password dialog box will be closed and the PDF file will not be opened.
  3. Check the PDF conversion options:
    1. File name
      By default, the document will be saved in the source folder and will have the name of the source document. To select a different folder or change the name of the file, click Change…
    2. Page range
      The options under Pages to transform allow you to convert an entire PDF file or only selected pages:
      • All - Converts the entire PDF document,
      • Selected - Converts selected pages. You may provide page numbers separated by commas and/or page ranges, e.g. 1,2, 4-12.
    3. Layout retention
      Thee options allow you to save tables in a convenient format:
      • Ignore text outside tables
        The output XLS file will only retain the tables of the original PDF file. The rest of the text will not be converted.
      • Transform numeric values to numbers
        The numeric values contained in the PDF files will be converted to Microsoft Excel numbers, allowing you to perform arithmetic operations on numeric cells.
    4. Document languages
      The list must contain only the languages actually used in the PDF document. When you first run ABBYY PDF Transformer, this list contains two languages - English and the interface language.
      To change the document languages, click Change…
      Note: We do not recommend using more than three languages at a time. Using more than three languages may result in more errors in the text of the output file.
  4. Click Transform to start conversion.

The output document will be saved in Microsoft Excel format and opened in Microsoft Excel.

Note:

  1. Clicking the Transform button will open the conversion dialog box displaying a progress bar, tips, and warning messages issued during conversion. To open a page for which a warning message has been issued, simply click the page number.
  2. If the look of the output document differs very much from the original, try altering the conversion options and/or selecting text, table, and picture areas manually. For more information, see Improving Conversion Results.

Improving Conversion Results

PDF Conversion Dialog Box