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How to convert an image to Excel

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Images of tables come from everywhere: a phone photo of a printed price list, a scan of a delivery note, a chart exported as PNG. Here is how to turn one into an Excel workbook, and what determines whether it comes out clean.

Know what kind of image you have

  • Digital-origin images (PNG exports, screenshots) — sharp edges, even lighting, best results.
  • Scans — good if scanned at 300 DPI or higher and the page was flat.
  • Photos — workable when shot square-on with even light; angle and glare are the main risks.
  • Compressed JPGs from messaging apps — often resized and smudged; find the original if you can.

The conversion, step by step

  1. 1. Get the best copy of the image

    Largest resolution available, PNG over JPG, uncropped original over a forwarded copy.

  2. 2. Upload to GridFiller

    JPG, PNG, WEBP, and PDF are accepted, up to 20MB each and up to 20 files per job.

  3. 3. Pick a merge strategy

    Append rows for a table continued across images, align by headers for matching column sets, keep separate for unrelated tables.

  4. 4. Extract and review

    The result opens as an editable grid. Correct misread cells and tidy up the header names.

  5. 5. Export .xlsx

    Download the workbook and continue in Excel.

Why JPG hurts more than people expect

JPG compression is tuned for photographs, where smooth gradients matter more than fine strokes. Small text is exactly the case it handles worst: the thin lines that distinguish a 3 from an 8, or a comma from a period, get blurred into the surrounding pixels.

PNG is lossless and keeps those strokes intact. If you control how the image is produced, always choose PNG for anything containing text.

Photographing a printed table well

  • Hold the camera parallel to the page rather than leaning over it.
  • Use diffuse light; a single lamp creates glare and a hard shadow.
  • Flatten the page — a curved book spine bends the columns.
  • Fill the frame with the table and nothing else.
  • Take two shots of a long table rather than one distant one, then append the rows.

Always review before you rely on it

AI extraction removes the typing, not the responsibility. Check the row count, the decimals, and any column where every value looks similar, because that is where a single wrong digit hides best.

For recurring reports, it helps to keep one known-good file to compare against the first extraction of each new batch.

Try it on your own file

Upload a screenshot, image, or PDF and GridFiller returns an editable table you can export to CSV or XLSX.

Open GridFiller

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