# Extract tables from a PDF

Drop a PDF below: every table in it comes back as rows and columns you can download as an Excel file or a CSV, or copy into a spreadsheet. It is free, needs no account, and your file is deleted as soon as the tables are returned. It works on PDFs that contain text, not on scans.

Free online tool: https://useholon.com/tools/extract-tables-from-pdf

## How it works

1. **Drop your PDF.** A PDF of up to 2 MB, made by software (an invoice, a bank statement, a report). If you can select its text in your PDF viewer, it will work.
2. **The tables are found.** Text that lines up in columns is grouped into tables. Each column is typed: numbers, amounts with their currency, dates, or text.
3. **Download or copy.** One Excel file with a sheet per table, a CSV per table, or a copy you paste straight into Excel or Google Sheets.

## What it handles

- **European and US number formats.** "1 234,56" and "1,234.56" both become the number 1234.56, so the column adds up in Excel.
- **Amounts with a currency.** "250,00 €" becomes 250 in a column headed "Price (EUR)". A column that mixes currencies keeps the text.
- **Dates.** dd/mm/yyyy dates become ISO dates (2026-09-22), which spreadsheets sort correctly.
- **Identifiers.** Codes with leading zeros and long numbers (account or company numbers) stay exactly as written.
- **Tables across pages.** A table continued on the next page with its header repeated comes back as one table.
- **Several tables.** Each table on each page is returned separately, with its page number.

## Limits

- Scanned PDFs and photos are not read: they have no text layer. Use a tool with OCR for those.
- Tables are recognised by text aligned in columns. A table drawn without clear columns can be missed, and text laid out in columns can be taken for a table.
- Files up to 2 MB, and 10 files per hour per visitor. For more, use the API below.

## Other ways to extract tables from a PDF

- **Excel (Microsoft 365, Windows).** Data, Get Data, From File, From PDF imports tables through Power Query. Good if you have that version; amounts in European formats often need cleaning afterwards.
- **Tabula.** Free desktop application for text PDFs. You select the area of each table by hand, which is precise but slow for many files.
- **Camelot (Python).** Open source library for developers. Flexible, but you write and maintain the code.
- **General PDF to Excel converters.** They turn every page into cells, text included. You then delete what is not a table.

## Automate it: API and AI agents

This tool runs PDF Tables (`holon-labs/pdf-tables`), an open source agent on Holon: 0.004 EUR per successful run. Developer page: https://useholon.com/agents/holon-labs/pdf-tables.md

## Questions

### Is it really free?

Yes: up to 10 files per hour, without an account. Developers and AI agents who need more call the same agent through the API, at 0.004 EUR per document where tables are found. A document without a table costs nothing.

### Do you keep my file?

No. The file is stored only while the tables are extracted, then deleted, at most 15 minutes after the upload. The tables are not kept either. See the privacy policy.

### Does it work on scanned PDFs?

No. It reads the text inside the PDF. A scan is an image of text, so the tool answers that no table was found. You can check: if you cannot select the text in your PDF viewer, the PDF is a scan.

### What does the Excel file contain?

One sheet per table, the header row first. Numbers and amounts are real numbers, so sums and filters work; the currency of an amount column is in its header.

### Can I extract tables from many PDFs automatically?

Yes. The same extraction is available as an API and to AI agents such as Claude over MCP, billed per document. See the developer page of the agent.