A scanned or photographed invoice is an image, not data — so before it can go into Excel, you need OCR to recognise the text. On-device OCR extracts the words and numbers so you can move the line items into a spreadsheet, and because it runs in your browser, the invoice stays private.
Why a scanned invoice won't convert directly
A scan or photo of an invoice is just pixels — there's no underlying text to pull into columns. OCR (optical character recognition) reads the characters out of the image first; only then can you get the amounts and line items into Excel.
Step 1: extract the text with OCR
Image to Text recognises the invoice text on your own device — nothing uploaded, which matters for supplier and payment details. You get the numbers and labels back as editable text you can work with.
Step 2: move it into a spreadsheet
Paste the extracted text into Excel and split it into columns (Data → Text to Columns), or line up the items by hand for a short invoice. If your invoice is a digital (non-scanned) PDF, skip OCR and convert PDF to Excel directly instead.
Getting accurate OCR from an invoice
- Use the highest-resolution scan or photo you can.
- Keep it straight and evenly lit; flatten creases and avoid shadows.
- Check the totals and any hand-stamped figures by eye — OCR can misread a smudged digit.
- Plain printed invoices read far better than faint thermal-printer receipts.
Doing this at scale
For the occasional invoice, on-device OCR plus a quick paste is fast and private. For hundreds of invoices a month, dedicated accounts-payable software with automated capture will be faster — but for a handful, you don't need to upload anything or pay for a service.
The private-vs-server trade-off
The OCR step here is fully on-device. The related PDF to Excel conversion (for digital PDFs) runs on a secure server instead — see extract data from a PDF into Excel for when to use which.