Kofax Power PDF Alternative for PDF to Excel: Tungsten Power PDF vs an Online Converter
Power PDF is a good desktop suite, and at a one time $129 it is better value than Adobe. It is also a Windows install you buy per seat. If the only thing you need is the table out of the PDF, PDFXLSX does that in the browser, runs OCR on scans, and takes a whole folder at once.
Nothing to install, works on any operating system, first file free. Not affiliated with or endorsed by Tungsten Automation.
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First conversion is free. No license to buy up front.
The short answer
Kofax Power PDF is now Tungsten Power PDF, after Kofax rebranded to Tungsten Automation in January 2024. It converts PDF to Excel through File, then Save As, then Excel Spreadsheet, it includes OCR, and it is a one time purchase at $129 for Standard or $179 for Advanced on Windows, which makes it genuinely cheaper than Adobe Acrobat over time. It is still a per seat Windows desktop install, and batch conversion to Excel sits in the Advanced edition. If pulling tables into a spreadsheet is the only job, a browser converter does it with nothing to install, on any operating system, with OCR on every file and no license to buy first.
Last updated July 2026
No Install
Runs in the browser
Any OS
Mac, Windows, Chromebook
OCR
Scans included
XLSX + CSV
Export formats
First, the name confusion
If you searched for Kofax Power PDF and landed on a site called Tungsten, you have not gone wrong. Kofax announced its rebrand to Tungsten Automation in January 2024, and the PDF product is now sold as Tungsten Power PDF, most recently as Power PDF 2025.3. The old name has not gone anywhere: the support community and a good deal of the product documentation still live on kofax.com, and resellers still list boxes labeled Kofax. Same software, two names.
Second, credit where it is due. Power PDF is not a weak product, and this page is not going to pretend it is. Tungsten sells Power PDF Standard at $129 and Power PDF Advanced at $179 as one time purchases, and says plainly that you buy once and own it forever with no monthly or annual fee. Against Adobe Acrobat, which only rents, that is a real argument, and for anyone who lives inside PDFs all day it is probably the better buy.
The question worth asking is narrower. Are you buying a PDF suite, or are you buying one feature inside it? Because if the answer is that a table keeps arriving as a PDF and needs to end up in a spreadsheet, you are about to install a Windows application and pay a per seat license to do a job a browser tab can do. That is the comparison this page is about, and the honest answer changes depending on which of the two you actually are.
| Date | Description | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| 03/04/2026 | Vendor payment, invoice 21884 | 4,120.00 |
| 03/07/2026 | Payroll transfer | 18,640.55 |
| 03/11/2026 | Merchant deposit | 7,309.18 |
| 03/15/2026 | Equipment lease | 2,455.00 |
Amounts arrive as numbers, not text, so the column totals.
Power PDF vs a focused converter
Power PDF wins the top half of this table outright. Read it before you decide, not after.
| What you need | Tungsten (Kofax) Power PDF | This converter |
|---|---|---|
| A full PDF editor: edit, redact, combine, e sign | Yes, that is the whole product | No, conversion only |
| Work offline, no file ever leaves the machine | Yes, it is a desktop app | No, the file is uploaded and then deleted |
| One time purchase with no recurring fee | Yes, $129 Standard or $179 Advanced | No, you pay by usage after the first file |
| Nothing to install, any operating system | No, a Windows install, with a separate Mac edition | Yes, it runs in a browser tab |
| Convert a PDF table to Excel | Yes, File then Save As then Excel Spreadsheet | Yes, upload and download |
| OCR a scanned page | Yes, the Tungsten OCR engine | Yes, runs automatically on every file |
| Convert a whole folder to Excel at once | In the Advanced edition, and the vendor notes it works best when the files are mainly tables | Yes, batch converter, any layout |
| Try it before paying anything | Free trial, no credit card, plus 30 day money back | First file free, no account required |
Prices and features were checked against Tungsten's published pricing and how to pages in July 2026 and change without notice. Confirm them before you buy. Nothing on this page is affiliated with or endorsed by Tungsten Automation, and Kofax and Power PDF are trademarks of their owner.
How do I convert a PDF to Excel in Kofax Power PDF?
Open the PDF, choose File, then Save As, pick where it should go, set the file type to Excel Spreadsheet, and save. Power PDF writes a standard .xlsx. If you only want one table out of a longer document, use the Select Area tool, draw a box around the table, right click inside it, choose Convert Area, and set the type to Excel Spreadsheet.
For a folder of files, Advanced Processing, then Batch, then the converter button, then Microsoft Excel will run the conversion across all of them. That path lives in the Advanced edition. Tungsten's own guidance is worth reading before you rely on it: the batch route works best when the files consist mainly of tables, and for text heavy documents the vendor steers you back to the select area tool, which means drawing a box by hand on each file. That is fine for ten documents and painful for two hundred.
Is Power PDF a subscription or a one time purchase?
A one time purchase. Tungsten sells the desktop editions perpetually and states that you buy once and own it forever, with no additional monthly or annual fees, backed by a 30 day money back guarantee. Standard is $129 and Advanced is $179 on Windows, with Power PDF for Mac at $129. Power PDF Business is quoted by sales with a five user minimum and can be bought either perpetual or by subscription.
Be careful with third party pages that describe those figures as annual. They are not. This is also the single strongest argument for Power PDF over Adobe Acrobat, which is only sold as a recurring subscription. Buy Power PDF Advanced once at $179 and you have spent less than a year of Acrobat Pro, forever.
So when is a converter the better choice?
When conversion is the whole job. A license is not the only cost of desktop software. It has to be installed on a machine you control, kept updated, and bought again for the next person who needs it. If three people on a finance team each need to pull a table out of a PDF twice a week, that is three licenses, three installs, and a Windows requirement that the person on the MacBook cannot meet without buying the separate Mac edition.
The browser route has none of that. Open a tab, drop the file, download the XLSX or a CSV, and get on with the work. OCR runs on every file rather than in a particular edition, so a scanned statement behaves like a digital one. And because the engine reads table structure off the page rather than asking you to draw a box around it, a two hundred page report with a table on every page is a single upload. When it matters, check the conversion against the source before you use the numbers. That takes about a minute and is worth doing whichever tool produced the file.
Who should stay with Power PDF
This is not a page trying to talk everybody out of a good product. Buy Power PDF if you are one of these people.
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You live inside PDFs and need editing, redaction, page assembly, comparison, and signatures, not just a table pulled out once in a while.
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Documents cannot leave the machine, because policy, a client agreement, or an air gapped network says so. A desktop app is the right answer and a browser is not.
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You refuse to rent software, and a $129 or $179 perpetual license you own beats a monthly Adobe bill that never ends. That is a completely defensible position.
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You are standardized on Windows and want an Office style ribbon that nobody has to be trained on.
Who is better off with a converter
- Accountants and bookkeepers turning statements and ledgers into spreadsheets. See the workflow for accountants.
- Anyone on a Mac who does not want to buy a separate Mac edition. See PDF to Excel on Mac.
- Teams without admin rights on locked down laptops, where installing anything means a ticket.
- Occasional converters who need this a few times a month and cannot justify a per seat license.
- High volume operations feeding hundreds of files through a repeatable process. See data entry automation.
Convert a PDF to Excel without installing anything
Three steps, no license key.
Upload the PDF
Drag it into the box at the top of this page. Digital or scanned, up to 50MB. For a folder, use the batch converter.
The table is read off the page
No selection box to draw. The engine finds the grid, keeps wrapped text on one row, and runs OCR when the page is a scan.
Download Excel or CSV
Numbers arrive as numbers, so columns total. Full walkthrough: how to convert a PDF to Excel.
Kofax Power PDF: common questions
Yes. Kofax rebranded to Tungsten Automation in an announcement made in January 2024, and the PDF product is now sold as Tungsten Power PDF. Both names remain in circulation, because the support community and much of the product documentation still sit on kofax.com domains, and resellers continue to list it as Kofax Power PDF. It is the same software.
Tungsten lists Power PDF Standard at $129 and Power PDF Advanced at $179, both as one time purchases for Windows. Power PDF for Mac is listed at $129. Power PDF Business is quoted by sales with a five user minimum and can be bought perpetual or by subscription. Prices were checked in July 2026, so confirm them on the vendor site before buying.
The desktop editions are a one time perpetual purchase. Tungsten states that you buy once and own it forever, with no additional monthly or annual fees, and offers a 30 day money back guarantee. This is the clearest advantage Power PDF holds over Adobe Acrobat, which is sold only as a recurring subscription. Some third party pages wrongly describe the $129 and $179 figures as annual.
Open the PDF, choose File, then Save As, pick a location, set the file type to Excel Spreadsheet, and save. To convert only one table, use the Select Area tool, draw a box around it, right click, choose Convert Area, and set the type to Excel Spreadsheet. To convert a folder at once, go to Advanced Processing, then Batch, then the converter button, and select Microsoft Excel.
Yes. Power PDF ships with the Tungsten OCR engine and can recognize text in scanned or image only PDFs, turning them into searchable documents. Tungsten positions the more advanced and batch OCR processing in the Advanced edition. Check the current edition comparison on the vendor site if OCR volume matters to you, because the feature split has moved between releases.
There is a separate Power PDF for Mac edition, listed at $129 as a one time purchase. It is a distinct product rather than the Windows version running on macOS, and it does not carry every Windows feature. Historically the Windows editions have held integrations that the Mac edition lacks, so check the current feature comparison before you buy for a mixed fleet.
Yes. Tungsten offers a free trial of Power PDF and states that no credit card is required to start it. The vendor page we checked did not publish a specific trial length, so treat any day count you read elsewhere with caution and confirm it at signup. The desktop purchase also carries a 30 day money back guarantee.
It depends on what you actually use it for. If you need a full PDF suite for editing, redaction, and signatures on a Windows machine, Power PDF is genuinely good value and hard to beat at a one time $129. If the only job is pulling tables out of PDFs and into a spreadsheet, a focused converter does that in a browser with no install, no Windows requirement, and no license to buy up front.
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Try it on the file you were about to buy software for
Drop the PDF at the top of the page and download clean Excel or CSV. Your first conversion is free, and if it does not handle your document, you have lost a minute rather than $179. Compare the rest in our roundup of PDF to Excel converters, or start with the PDF to Excel converter.