Converting from pdf to excel is not working

English
#1

some of commands is working but some isnt , i’m using the latest version of libreoffice which is

[ec2-user@ip-]$ soffice --version
LibreOffice 25.2.0.3 e1cf4a87eb02d755bce1a01209907ea5ddc8f069

now the problem is when i try to convert from pdf to excel or from docx to excel im getting this

error: no export filter

here is the commandes that i have tried

/opt/libreoffice25.2/program/soffice --headless --convert-to xlsx "/home/ec2-user/file-convertor/uploads/6866a103-aee2-4fdf-9585-e0eb711d1bdf.docx" --outdir "/home/ec2-user/file-convertor/uploads"


/opt/libreoffice25.2/program/soffice --headless --convert-to csv "/home/ec2-user/file-convertor/uploads/6866a103-aee2-4fdf-9585-e0eb711d1bdf.docx" --outdir /home/ec2-user/file-convertor/uploads

and there is others…
but of course some of conversion is working like from pdf to docx or the reverse and to txt and other …

i wanna know if i can be done to excel from pdf and docx or no ?

#2

No software can convert pdf to spreadsheet for the same reason why you can’t convert a paper scan into a spreadsheet. Pdf is a one-way print. You can’t push the tooth paste back into the tube.

#3

may be nice to offer wild guesses concerning LO limitations,

however, for reference : File Conversion Filters Tables

and to stay up to speed for 2025 :

#4

But you never get back the original spreadsheet from which the pdf may have been created. At best, you get correct values in the right cells. A bunch of data in a cell grid is hardly a spreadsheet.

#5

but there is many online websites that let u do that even if it’s not in good form… , im not asking about pdf to excel specifically maybe from docx to excel or from power point to excel or power point to docs and the reverse … cant be done with libreoffice?

#6

Try with Tabula:

I had used it several times and worked great.

#7

what im trying to know can i convert docx file to excel or power point file using libreoffice or no?

#8

I answered your initial query: “convert PDF → spreadsheet (ODS)”

#9

From a general point of view: No, you can not change the type of a document. Neither pdf ( some kind of graphics format) to spreadsheet, nor Text to Spreadsheet.
.
On the other hand you may copy Tables from a Word/Writer-file manually to spreadsheet pages and I also converted Text-files to spread-sheet tables with help of some scripts. But there is no general way to do this as contents vary.

#10

:thinking:

for the gory details : 157640 – Error message "source file could not be loaded" could be more explicit when using import filter calc_pdf_addstream_import on non-hybrid PDF

#11

@fpy That’s why I started with “From a general point of view”. There are ablot of cases where we may convert data, but we have to check the files first. I have a lot of pdfs produced by scanning documents, so they are images in disguise and you need ocr for the contents. Now the same process is producing “readable” pdfs, but as I know the software: You may “detect” columns by position, but there never was any tabular data, so no markup to convert to tables.
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But as in your link the file may contain additonal streams with the original data and we may see ablot of embedded xml in the next years (if zugferd turn out as a popular solution for invoices in Germany). So conversions can be possible under certainvcircumstances, and usually not for persons who simply think everything can be converted with a magic spell.
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This may be something where asking an AI to do the translation may seem an idea. But will need quite some checking of the results (or more trust than I can provide).

#12

Do you mean .xlsx to .ods?

#13

For the “text document → spreadsheet” direction:

There is a filter to open RTF as a spreadsheet. This can be used to do a two-step conversion: first, you convert your text document (e.g., DOCX) to RTF; and then you use Rich Text Format (StarCalc) import filter to convert the resulting RTF to a spreadsheet.

Indeed, each conversion would add more inaccuracies.

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#14

yeah maybe i did wrong when i said excel and power point, but not from ods specfically , from docx to xlsx and reverse and maybe from pdf to xlsx and the reverse if i can happen , i tried actually to open libre office app and i tried to save as a file no i didnt find anything related to xlsx ,power point …

Screenshot 2025-02-18 085232
Screenshot 2025-02-18 085232860×441 32.6 KB

what im trying to do is a backend api where i can convert between files types , i used librareoffice it looks itke it works for the types in the image but i wanna convert between other types like from docx or pdf to xlsx / reverse and pptx … , i dont know but libreoffice looks like doesnt support that , i dont know if there is another free tool that i can use for achieve conversions between files …

#15

Do you really imagine that there may be a tool to convert any file format to any other? Have you considered a conversion from a scientifical paper discussing DNA (published in HTML) into a building construction plans in DWG?

What you want actually needs AI. In general, there is no correct method to convert image (PDF) or text (DOCX) into spreadsheets. Some of those files may be converted using intelligence - and that’s not a task for a non-AI tools like LibreOffice.

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#16

tesseract has been around for decades.

#17

i know you’re right and generally its not logical to convert lets say xlsx to pptx but some of online tools as they mentioned in the prev comments copies the data from docx for example and put them inside pptx or xlsx , so is there any tools that does the same (at least) or i should implement that in my code like (reading from file and write into the other file)

#18

I’suggest you start coding then (or maybe start with old fashioned reading on file formats)
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Just out of curiosity: What do you expect from a conversion from a .docx with a text from Hemingway after conversion to .xlsx

#19

mm it’s not 100% for conversion ,but what u’re trying to say is that i can use it for reading file and i can create whatever type file i need then writing everthing into it right?

#20

if you are a very talented programmer…
I wish you good luck, but I’m out.

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