PDF to Excel: Smallpdf vs iLovePDF vs MyTools, Tested

The numbers you need are trapped in a PDF — a quarterly report, two years of bank statements, an eligibility table for a grant — and the obvious move fails immediately: copy-paste into Excel and every row collapses into a single mangled cell. So you go looking for a converter to do it properly. This is an honest Smallpdf vs iLovePDF vs MyTools comparison for the one specific job of converting PDF tables to Excel, looking at where each option genuinely helps and where it quietly costs you time, money, or a document you'd rather not have uploaded anywhere.

What "Convert PDF to Excel" Actually Involves

A PDF doesn't store a table as a table. It stores characters at x/y coordinates that look like a grid when rendered. Converting to Excel means reverse-engineering rows and columns from that geometry — which is why results vary so much between tools, and why three problems recur:

• The retype tax. A clean table on page four still costs ten minutes of manual entry, or longer fixing what a bad converter mangled.
• Digital vs scanned. A PDF you can select text in (a "digital" PDF) has a text layer to work from. A scanned or photographed page is just an image — extracting data from it needs OCR, which is a different and harder problem.
• Sensitivity. Bank statements, payroll, internal financials. Whether the file is uploaded to someone else's server is not a footnote when the data is money.

People reach for an online converter rather than Excel's own import because the import wizard is fiddly, the file is on a phone or a locked-down work laptop, or it's a one-off they don't want to install software for.

Smallpdf — Mature Engine, Metered Free Tier

Swiss-made and the most established paid name in the category. Smallpdf converts on its servers using a well-tuned extraction engine, and offers OCR on its paid tiers for scanned documents.

What it gets right

• Strong extraction accuracy, including on messier multi-column tables where a simpler tool would misalign columns.
• Scanned PDFs are handled via OCR on the paid plans — something neither free tool below can do.
• Polished, beginner-proof interface, plus a deep set of adjacent PDF tools and Google Drive / Dropbox integration.

Where it falls short

• The free tier is tightly metered — commonly reported as around two conversions per 24 hours before it asks you to upgrade.
• Batch conversion and unlimited use sit behind a Pro subscription (offered with a 7-day trial), so recurring cost is the real price of regular use.
• Every file is uploaded to Smallpdf's servers. For statements or internal reports, that extends the chain of custody whether you think about it or not.

iLovePDF — Big Toolbox, Premium Gate

A broad, well-trusted PDF suite with web tools and mobile apps. The PDF-to-Excel converter is one of dozens of utilities, and its standard converter works from the PDF's text layer.

What it gets right

• Reliable on clean, digital PDFs, with a tidy interface and genuinely good mobile apps.
• Cloud round-trip is the smoothest here: pull from and save back to Google Drive or Dropbox.
• Premium unlocks batch (up to 10 files per task) and much larger file sizes for people who convert in volume.

Where it falls short

• The free tier has daily task limits and file-size restrictions that surface exactly when you're in a hurry.
• Real batch processing and large documents require a Premium subscription; some features prompt you to log in.
• The standard converter needs a real text layer — scanned or image-only PDFs won't extract cleanly without a separate OCR step. Files are processed on iLovePDF's servers.

MyTools — In-Browser, No Limits, No OCR

The MyTools PDF to Excel converter takes a different architecture: the conversion runs entirely in your browser with JavaScript, so the PDF is never uploaded anywhere.

What it gets right

• Genuinely free with no account, no watermark, and no daily cap — convert as often as you need.
• Batch up to 10 PDFs (50 MB each) in one go, with a page-range picker, one-sheet-per-page or merged output, and an option to include non-table text. Numbers come through as real numbers, not text.
• The file never leaves the tab, so there's nothing uploaded, retained, or logged — the right default for financial documents.

Where it falls short

• No OCR. Scanned or photographed PDFs simply won't work; the tool needs a selectable text layer. Smallpdf's paid OCR wins outright here.
• Table reconstruction is geometry-based. On clean tables it's solid, but heavily merged cells, borderless layouts, or multi-line rows can come out misaligned — Smallpdf's mature server engine is more forgiving of messy source PDFs.
• Hard ceilings (10 files, 50 MB each) and no cloud integrations, saved history, or API. Output is .xlsx only.

At a Glance

	Smallpdf	iLovePDF	MyTools
Free tier	~2 conversions/day	Daily + size limits	Unlimited
Signup required	No (Pro for more)	Some features	No
Batch	Pro only	Premium only	Free, up to 10
Scanned PDF (OCR)	Yes, paid tiers	Not in converter	No
Files uploaded	Yes	Yes	No — stays in browser
Best for	Messy/scanned tables	Cloud workflow	Private, repeat, digital PDFs

So Which Should You Use?

Pick Smallpdf when the source is hostile: scanned statements, dense multi-column tables, or anything where extraction accuracy matters more than cost and you're fine uploading the file. Its paid OCR and tuned engine are the best in this trio for difficult documents, and worth the subscription if you do this weekly.

Pick iLovePDF if your documents live in Google Drive or Dropbox and you want the spreadsheet to land back there, or you work mostly from a phone. For occasional single conversions of clean PDFs it's smooth — just expect the daily limits and a Premium prompt the moment you need batch.

Pick MyTools when the PDFs are digital (you can select the text), you're converting them often enough that per-day caps are annoying, and the contents are sensitive enough that "uploaded to a server you don't control" is a real objection. Batch and page ranges are free, and the file never leaves your machine. The honest catch: if it's a scan, MyTools can't help you — that's a Smallpdf job.

The Short Version

There's no universal winner here, only a best fit per document. Scanned or genuinely messy tables, cost no object: Smallpdf. A cloud-and-mobile workflow: iLovePDF. Clean digital PDFs, converted often, kept on your own machine: MyTools — free, unlimited, and private by construction.

If that last one is your situation, convert your PDF to Excel in the browser → — drop in up to ten files, pick the pages and layout, and the .xlsx downloads without an upload anywhere.