Two paid PDF tools, two very different pricing philosophies, and the same question that brought you here: which one gets a table out of a PDF and into Excel with less pain? The short version is that PDF-XChange Editor wins on price and Adobe Acrobat wins on reach, and that for a lot of people the honest answer is neither, because both are full PDF suites and you only need one feature inside them.
Everything below was checked against the vendors' own pages in July 2026. Prices move, so confirm the current numbers before you buy.
PDF-XChange Editor vs Adobe Acrobat: the short answer
PDF-XChange Editor is a Windows only desktop editor sold as a one time perpetual license from about $62, and it exports a PDF to Excel through File, then Export, then Export to Microsoft Excel. Adobe Acrobat is a cross platform subscription, roughly $14.99 a month for Standard or $19.99 a month for Pro on an annual plan, and it exports through Tools, then Export PDF, then Spreadsheet. PDF-XChange is far cheaper over time and runs only on Windows. Acrobat costs more and runs on Windows, Mac, the web, and mobile. Neither publishes a table extraction accuracy figure, and both handle clean digital tables well and scanned or multi line tables poorly.
How much does each one cost?
This is the clearest difference, and it runs in PDF-XChange's favor. PDF-XChange Editor is a perpetual license: you pay once and own that version. Adobe Acrobat is rented: you pay every month for as long as you use it, and the export stops working when you stop paying.
| Cost over time | PDF-XChange Editor | Adobe Acrobat Pro |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | One time perpetual | Monthly subscription |
| Entry price | About $62 (Editor), $131 (PRO) | About $19.99 per month, annual plan |
| Cost after 1 year | $62 to $131 once | About $239.88 |
| Cost after 5 years | $62 to $131 once | About $1,199.40 |
| Upgrades included | That version only, upgrades are optional and paid | Always the latest, while you subscribe |
Read the last row before you decide the perpetual license is a free lunch. A perpetual license buys the version you bought, not every future one. PDF-XChange sells optional maintenance for access to new releases, and if you skip it you keep working on the build you own while the product moves on. Adobe's subscription always gives you the current release, which is the thing you are actually paying the premium for.
Which one runs on my computer?
PDF-XChange Editor is Windows only. There is no native Mac or Linux build, so an office split between Windows desktops and MacBooks cannot standardize on it without a virtual machine on the Mac side. Adobe Acrobat runs on Windows and Mac as a desktop app, in the browser through Acrobat online, and on phones and tablets. If a mixed fleet or working from any machine matters, that reach is Acrobat's strongest argument, and it is a real one.
How does each convert a PDF to Excel?
In PDF-XChange Editor, open the PDF and choose File, then Export, then Export to Microsoft Excel. In Adobe Acrobat, open the PDF and choose Tools, then Export PDF, then Spreadsheet, then Microsoft Excel Workbook. Both write a standard .xlsx, and both read grid lines and cell boundaries well when the source is clean digital text.
Two limits apply to both. Free Adobe Reader cannot export to Excel at all, and the free build of PDF-XChange Editor password protects the export until you activate a license, so in practice you have to be a paying user of either one to get a usable spreadsheet. And both stumble on the same documents: a scanned page needs OCR first, and a cell that held two lines of text tends to split rows or merge neighbors, which knocks the whole grid out of line.
Which is more accurate at pulling out tables?
Neither vendor publishes a table extraction accuracy number, there is no shared benchmark the two are measured against, and any percentage you see, including on a vendor's own marketing page, is a claim rather than a measurement. So the honest answer is that accuracy depends far more on your document than on the badge on the software. A single page invoice with ruled lines and one line per row converts cleanly in either. A dense multi page report with wrapped cells and merged headers gives both of them trouble. The only reliable test is your own file, which is why it is worth running the same PDF through more than one tool and comparing before you commit.
So which should I buy?
If you edit PDFs all day on Windows, want to own your software, and refuse to pay monthly, PDF-XChange Editor is the better buy and it is not close on price. If you work across Mac and Windows, need the web and mobile versions, or want the tool that defined the format and gets every new feature first, Acrobat earns its subscription. But step back before you buy either just to convert tables. A full editor is a lot of software, and a recurring bill or a per seat install, to do a job a browser tab can do.
A focused converter turns a PDF table into a spreadsheet on any operating system, runs OCR on every file rather than as a separate step, keeps numbers numeric so columns total, and lets you try it on your real document before paying anything. When the job is only the table, that is less to buy, less to install, and less to maintain. If you are weighing the desktop editors specifically, the PDF-XChange Editor alternative and Adobe Acrobat alternative pages lay out each trade in full, and the roundup of PDF to Excel converters compares the field. Whichever tool produces the file, check the conversion against the source before you trust the numbers.
One more thing worth saying: converting the table is often only the first step. Once the data is in Excel you may still need to sign off on a report or route it for approval, and it is quicker to send it for a signature from a tool built for that than to buy a whole PDF suite for the one time a quarter you need it. Match the tool to the job and you spend less on all of it.