Scanned PDF to Excel
A scanned PDF is really a photo of a page wrapped in a PDF file. To a computer it looks like one big picture – there is no text inside to copy into Excel. That's why normal PDF to Excel converters return an empty spreadsheet for scans.
Coming soon
OCR and AI extraction are coming soon. Current PDF to Excel works best with digital PDFs that contain selectable text or tables.
Why scanned PDFs are different
Digital PDFs store every letter and its position, so tables can be rebuilt exactly. Scanned PDFs only store pixels. Turning them into a spreadsheet needs two extra steps: recognising the letters (OCR) and then recognising the table structure. Both depend heavily on scan quality.
Tips for better scans
- Scan at 300 DPI in black and white or grayscale.
- Keep the page straight and avoid shadows and folds.
- Prefer a document scanner app over a normal photo.
- If a digital version exists, use it instead – the result will always be more accurate.
Privacy: your files stay on your device
Your files stay on your device. Conversions run in your browser. Sehnna never uploads, stores or reads your documents – there is no server that receives them, no account and no email address.
- Your files stay on your device
- No signup required
- Browser-based conversion
Scanned PDF to Excel – questions and answers
Can Sehnna convert scanned PDFs to Excel?
Not yet. OCR and AI extraction are coming soon. Current PDF to Excel works best with digital PDFs that contain selectable text or tables.
Why does my scanned PDF give an empty result elsewhere?
Because the PDF contains an image of the text, not the text itself. Without OCR there is nothing to put into the cells.
My PDF has both text and scanned pages. What happens?
Pages with selectable text are converted. Scanned pages come out empty until OCR is available.
Is there a workaround today?
Ask for the original file, or download a digital PDF or CSV export from the source system and convert that instead.