Convert a JPG of a table to an Excel spreadsheet

What you get from a JPG table

The picture is read as a table, row by row. Each row of the picture becomes a row of the sheet, with one cell for each cell you can see. Text before or after the table, such as a title above it or a note below it, goes on its own row.

A cell that is empty in the picture is empty in the sheet. That keeps every value in the column it belongs to, which is what makes a sheet sortable and filterable once it is in Excel.

Which values become numbers

In the .xlsx file, a plain number such as 12, 3.50 or -4 is stored as a number, so Excel can add it up, and a price written 3.50 still shows both decimals. Everything else stays as the text that was in the picture, so nothing changes by accident:

• Values with a currency sign, a percent sign or a thousands separator, such as $3.50 and 1,200.
• Dates, times and anything with letters in it.
• Codes and ZIP codes with a leading zero, such as 02134.
• Whole numbers of ten or more digits, which are usually phone numbers or ID numbers.

Take a photo that reads cleanly

The clearer the rows and columns are in the JPG, the cleaner the sheet. These habits help the most:

• Use the original file, not a copy that was shrunk or compressed when it was shared.
• Photograph the table straight on and flat, in even light, so the columns do not lean or curve.
• Crop to the table, and keep one table in each picture so each result matches one source.
• For a table that spans several pages, upload one page at a time.

Check the numbers, then the layout

Reading a table saves typing, but it does not replace checking. Small, faint or blurry text can be misread or skipped, and a skipped cell can shift the values next to it. Compare the grid with the picture, starting with the numbers and the header row, and look at any column that was hard to read.

Formulas, merged cells, colors and borders are not recreated. You get the values; the text of a merged cell goes in its first cell. Format the sheet in your own spreadsheet app after you have checked it.

XLSX or CSV

Choose .xlsx when you will open the table in Excel, Numbers or Google Sheets: numbers are numbers there, and codes with a leading zero keep it. Choose .csv when another program needs a plain text file. Excel applies its own rules when it opens a .csv file, for example by dropping a leading zero, so the .xlsx file is the safer choice for codes and IDs. A .csv file separates cells with commas and keeps accents and other scripts. Where Excel expects semicolons instead, it may show each row in one column: import the file and choose the comma as the separator, or use the .xlsx file. In a .csv file, a text value that starts with =, +, - or @ gets an apostrophe in front, so it can never run as a formula.