Why free PDF-to-Excel converters break your numbers (and how to check)
Most free converters place each text fragment where it appears on the page. The result looks right, but numbers are often stored as text, thousands separators confuse Excel, and rows split when a description wraps onto two lines.
Three quick checks reveal the problem: select an amount column and look at the status bar — if Excel shows a Count but no Sum, the numbers are text. Sort a date column — if 1/10 comes before 2/1, dates are text too. Finally, compare the document's total with a SUM of the column.
A usable conversion fixes these at the source: numeric columns are converted to numbers using the document's own decimal convention, dates are rebuilt into one format, wrapped lines are merged back into their row, and totals are checked against the lines.