Extract a PDF table to CSV

gridlift extracts the tables inside a PDF into CSV you can open in Excel, Numbers, or Google Sheets. Open the PDF and the tables are found for you, on every page, in one pass. Each table is listed with a preview of its cells, so you can check what was detected before anything is downloaded. Everything runs in your browser: the PDF is never uploaded, and the CSV is built on your device. Detecting tables and previewing them is free; downloading CSV is part of a one-time unlock.

From PDF pages to a CSV file

Open a PDF and gridlift reads it page by page, detecting every table it finds. The tables appear in a list; pick one and its cells render in a preview table before you export. When you download, the rows you previewed are written to a CSV file named after your PDF and the table, ready for Excel, Numbers, Google Sheets, or anything else that reads delimited text.

Ruled tables and plain aligned text

PDFs draw tables two ways, and gridlift detects both. Tables built from ruled lines are read straight off the grid. Tables that are just aligned text, with no lines at all, are read from the whitespace between columns. Detection runs automatically: ruled-line reading is tried first on each page, and on pages with no ruled tables the whitespace reader takes over, so you do not choose a mode or configure anything.

Delimiter and encoding options

The CSV export offers three delimiters: comma, semicolon, and tab. Pick whichever your spreadsheet expects — a European copy of Excel, for example, often lists semicolon as its list separator. There is also an option to add a UTF-8 BOM to the CSV. If your table holds accented names or notes, tick it so Excel opens the file with the right encoding instead of mojibake.

What is free, and what the unlock covers

Opening a PDF, detecting every table on every page, and previewing the first ten rows of any table are free, with no page or table limit. Seeing every row and downloading CSV or JSON is available through a one-time unlock — not a subscription. Until then the preview is fully functional, so you can confirm detection worked before deciding.

Frequently asked questions

Is my PDF uploaded to a server?

No. The PDF is read and processed in your browser, and the file itself never leaves it. If you choose to pay, a Stripe-hosted checkout page opens in a new browser tab.

Which PDFs work best?

Text-based PDFs, because their characters are available as a readable text layer. Scanned or image-only pages have no text layer, and gridlift does not provide OCR.

My CSV opens as one long column. What went wrong?

Almost always a delimiter mismatch between the file and the spreadsheet. Export again with a different delimiter — semicolon or tab instead of comma — until your spreadsheet splits the columns where it should.

What if no tables are found?

Check whether the table uses ruled lines. Tables without ruled lines fall to the whitespace-based reader, and very tight column gaps can defeat it. The app tells you plainly when a page produced nothing.

Can I get JSON instead of CSV?

Yes. The same tables export to JSON, either the one you have selected or all of them in a single document. See the PDF tables to JSON page for the details.

PDF to JSON — Turn the tables in a PDF into JSON - one selected table or every table in a single document - with each table addressable by id, page and source. Runs entirely in your browser.
Merged cells — PDF tables with merged cells export without broken rows: the preview shows each span as printed, and you choose whether covered cells repeat the value or stay empty.
Multi-page PDFs — gridlift scans every page of a multi-page PDF and lists each table with its page, size and detector - keeping page boundaries clear instead of stitching a guess.

Open gridlift to detect the tables in your PDF and preview them free.