Where these images come from
Tables arrive as images far more often than as clean exports: a photo of a printed price list, a scanned delivery note, a chart exported from a reporting tool as PNG, or a page pulled out of a PDF that has no text layer.
In each case the layout is obvious to a person and invisible to a spreadsheet. Traditional OCR gets you the characters but loses the grid, which means you still have to rebuild the columns by hand.
How the conversion works
1. Add your images
Drop in JPG, PNG, WEBP, or PDF files. Mixed types in one job are fine.
2. Choose a merge strategy
Align by headers when the images share columns, append rows for continuations, keep separate for unrelated tables.
3. Extract the structure
The vision model works on layout as well as characters, so column boundaries and header rows are preserved rather than flattened into a line of text.
4. Edit the result
The table opens in a grid editor where you can correct values and adjust headers.
5. Download the workbook
Export .xlsx for Excel, or CSV if something downstream expects plain text.
JPG and PNG behave differently
PNG is lossless, so screenshots and exported charts keep their sharp edges and small text stays crisp. JPG uses lossy compression, which smudges thin strokes — the difference between 8 and 3, or a decimal point and a comma, can get lost at low quality settings.
If you have a choice, save or export as PNG. If you only have a JPG, use the largest version you can find rather than a resized copy from a chat app.
Practical tips for photos and scans
- Shoot straight on rather than at an angle, so the columns stay parallel.
- Use even lighting and avoid a shadow falling across part of the table.
- Fill the frame with the table; cropping out surrounding page reduces noise.
- Scan at 300 DPI or higher when the source is paper.
- Check totals and decimal places in the editor before exporting.
Common questions
- Which image formats are supported?
- PNG, JPG, JPEG, and WEBP, plus PDF pages, up to 20MB per file.
- Will a photo of a printed table work?
- Often, yes, if the photo is sharp, well lit, and taken square-on. Angled shots, glare, and shadows across the page reduce accuracy.
- Can I convert many images at once?
- Yes. Up to 20 files can go into a single job, and you choose whether they merge into one table or stay on separate sheets.
Keep reading
- Image to spreadsheet — the general version, including CSV and Google Sheets destinations.
- Extract a table from an image — when the image contains other content around the table.
- Screenshot to Excel — if your source is a screen capture rather than a photo or scan.
- How to convert an image to Excel — a walkthrough covering photos, scans, and exported graphics.