Last week, I visited a local government office to renew a permit. While waiting in the line, I noticed something that made me wince slightly. A rather tired-looking clerk behind the counter was manually copying data from every PDF form into Excel spreadsheets.
I could've gone over and showed them a better way, but my social anxiety kicked in (fellow introverts, you know the feeling) and that was that. But as someone who's spent years helping organizations automate their PDF workflows, I couldn't help but calculate the hours being wasted — each form taking 3-4 minutes, multiplied by hundreds per day. 🤯
So, instead of being that awkward tech person interrupting their work, I thought I'd just write this quick guide, sharing three PDF to Excel data extraction methods that I've personally tested.