Convert a price list PDF to Excel
Wholesalers and distributors often publish price lists as long PDF tables. Comparing them with your own prices or another supplier's is practical only in a spreadsheet.
PDF to Excel joins tables that continue over a page break and doesn't duplicate a repeated header row as data, which suits long, multi-page price lists.
Once the list is in Excel, use filters to find product codes, or a lookup formula to match codes against your own catalogue. Colours, borders, merged cells and product images in the PDF are not reproduced; only the data is. If the list has several sections with different column layouts, check the column alignment where each section starts. Supplier prices change often, so record the price list's date in a column of your own before you combine it with older lists; that way you always know which version a price came from.
Step by step
- Download the price list as a PDF from the supplier.
- Sign in, open PDF to Excel and add the file.
- Convert and download the workbook.
- Turn on filters for the header row and check a few product codes against the PDF.
Tips
- Remove cover pages and terms first with Delete PDF pages.
- Format the price column as currency after converting.
- Large catalogues must be under 25 MB; split very large ones first.
Questions
- Will product images come across?
- No. Images are not reproduced; only the text values are.
- Does the header repeat on every page?
- A repeated header row is recognised and not duplicated as data.
- Can I convert a scanned catalogue?
- Scans have no text layer, so results are poor.
Related tools
Full guide: How to convert a PDF to Excel