# Convert PDF to Excel with Images: Logos, Charts, Photos

- Author: FastBankConvert (https://fastbankconvert.com)
- Published: 2026-10-17
- Category: PDF to Excel basics
- Canonical: https://fastbankconvert.com/blog/convert-pdf-to-excel-with-images

> What happens when you convert PDF to Excel with images on the page: where logos, charts and photos go, and how to keep a picture beside the data.
When you convert a PDF to Excel with images on its pages, the text and numbers usually become cells and the images usually do not. Most converters skip logos, photos and charts, a few drop them onto the sheet as floating pictures, and none turn a chart back into the figures that drew it. Keep pictures yourself, separately.

## What happens to PDF images during an Excel conversion?

PDF images are stored as separate picture objects placed on the page, apart from the text. A converter that builds rows and columns reads the text objects and has nothing to put in a cell for a picture, so it either ignores it or pastes it on top of the grid. What you get depends on the tool.

A PDF page is closer to a collage than a table. Each line of text is a run of characters with a position. Each logo, photo or chart is a bitmap or a set of drawing commands with its own position. A spreadsheet cell can hold a number, a date or some text. That mismatch decides what survives.

The table below shows the usual outcome for each kind of picture. It describes typical behaviour, not a promise from any particular product, so test your own file.

| Picture on the PDF page | What it usually becomes in Excel |
| --- | --- |
| Company logo in the header | Dropped, or a floating picture above row 1 |
| Light watermark behind the table | Dropped; sometimes its text turns into a stray row |
| Chart drawn from figures | A picture at best; the figures are lost |
| Product photo beside each row | Dropped, or floating pictures that do not move with their rows |
| Handwritten signature | Dropped |
| Whole scanned page | Nothing, unless the tool runs text recognition first |

The last row is the one that surprises people. A scanned page is a single large picture, so a converter without text recognition sees no text at all and returns an empty sheet.

## PDF charts that arrive as pictures, not chart data

A PDF chart is ink, not data. The bars and lines were drawn from numbers, but the PDF keeps only the shapes, so no converter can hand you an Excel chart you can edit. At most you get an image of it. The figures come back only if the PDF also prints them as a table or as data labels.

Look at the chart before you try anything. If each bar carries a printed value, those values are text, and a converter can pick them up as a short row of numbers. You can then rebuild the chart in Excel from that row in a minute. If the chart has only axes and gridlines, the values exist nowhere in the file.

For a chart without labels, you have three honest options:

1. Ask whoever made the PDF for the source spreadsheet. This is the fastest route and the only exact one.
2. Read approximate values off the axis by eye and type them in, marked as estimates.
3. Keep the chart as a picture next to your own table, for reference only.

Do not trust a figure read off a bar to more precision than the gridlines allow. A bar that ends between the 40 and 50 lines tells you roughly 45, not 46.2.

## Putting a PDF picture beside its rows in Excel

To keep a picture next to the data it belongs to, take the picture out of the PDF separately and insert it into the sheet yourself. Converting and inserting are two jobs. Convert the text to rows first, then add the logo, photo or chart image to the place where it helps the reader.

Getting the picture out is simple on most computers. Zoom the PDF so the image fills the screen, take a screenshot of just that area, and save it as a PNG. On Windows the Snipping Tool does this; the other built-in options are covered in [the built-in ways to convert PDF to Excel on Windows](/blog/convert-pdf-to-excel-on-windows). A screenshot loses some sharpness, so zoom in before you capture, not after.

Then insert it into Excel. A floating picture sits over the cells and stays where you dropped it. That is fine for a logo above a report header. It is a problem for a product photo on row 40, because the photo will not follow its row when you sort or filter the list.

If you want the whole PDF to travel with the workbook, rather than one image from it, attaching the file is a different job. [Opening, inserting or importing a PDF in Excel](/blog/open-pdf-in-excel) explains how the Insert Object route attaches the full PDF as an icon.

## Can Excel store a picture inside a cell?

Yes, in recent versions. Microsoft's guide to [inserting a picture in a cell in Excel](https://support.microsoft.com/en-US/excel/insert-picture-in-cell-in-excel) lists Excel for Microsoft 365 and Excel 2024. A picture placed in a cell becomes that cell's content, the way a number would, so it travels with the row when you sort. Older versions only have floating pictures.

Here are the steps from that guide, with an example of where you might use them:

1. Click the cell next to the row the picture belongs to, for example cell F2 beside a product code in A2.
2. On the Insert tab, choose Illustrations, then Pictures, then Place in Cell.
3. Pick the source, such as This Device, and choose the PNG you saved from the PDF.
4. Select Insert. The picture shrinks to fit the cell.
5. To turn an existing floating picture into an in-cell one, select it and choose Place in Cell on the Picture Format tab. It moves into the top-left cell it was covering.

Going the other way is also possible: right-click the in-cell picture and choose Picture in Cell, then Place over Cells.

Microsoft's guide does not list Excel 2016 or 2019, so expect only floating pictures there, and no PDF import either. [What Excel 2016 and 2019 lack for PDF work](/blog/pdf-to-excel-in-excel-2016) covers the workarounds for those versions. With floating pictures, the safe habit is to sort the list first and add the pictures last.

## Logo and watermark images that break PDF table detection

Pictures can damage the rows as well as go missing. A watermark with text in it, a logo that overlaps the first column, or a stamp across the table can confuse the step where a converter decides where columns start. The result is a shifted column or a stray row, not a missing image.

Watch for these signs after a conversion:

- A row near the top holds a single word such as "CONFIDENTIAL" or "COPY", which came from a watermark.
- The first column of a few rows is blank or merged into the second, near where a logo sat.
- A stamp or signature across the totals turns the total line into text.

Fix these by deleting the stray rows and checking the shifted ones against the PDF. If a page is a scan with a picture over the table, a cleaner copy of the PDF is worth asking for before you repair anything.

Analysts who handle many such files sometimes script the table extraction instead. [Extracting a table from a PDF in R](/blog/extract-table-from-pdf-in-r) shows that approach, where you set the page area so a header logo is never read.

Bank statements are a narrow case: their logos sit in the header, and the rows are what matter. FastBankConvert is getting ready to open for that job, turning a statement PDF into Excel or CSV rows. [Get started](/get-started) to hear when trial conversions open.