Extract Spreadsheet Data from PDFs with PDF to Excel

Remember PDF to Word, the free Web service that converts PDFs into editable Word documents? Now there's a number-minded equivalent: PDF to Excel turns PDFs into Excel-compatible spreadsheets. (That probably wasn't hard to guess, huh?)

All you do is upload a PDF that contains table and/or worksheet data, then supply your e-mail address. The service extracts the appropriate content, creates an XLS file, then e-mails you a link where you can download it.

Adobe Acrobat is the only other tool I'm aware of that can automatically extract table data from a PDF -- and it starts at $299. PDF to Excel costs zilch. And according to the developer, it does a better job than Acrobat at recreating table formatting. I don't have the latter, so I can't put that claim to the test -- but there's certainly no harm in trying the free tool before spending hundreds of dollars on Acrobat.