How to Export PDF Comments to Excel

You have a reviewed PDF with corrections from several people. The designer can read the comments in Acrobat, but the project manager wants a spreadsheet to assign work, record decisions, and see what is still open.

To export PDF comments to Excel, you need to extract the annotations and turn their contents into rows. Acrobat’s documented comment-data export offers FDF and XFDF, rather than an Excel workbook or CSV. One practical route is to export XFDF, convert it to CSV, and open that file in Excel.

This guide covers that route, a manual option for short lists, and the checks that make the resulting spreadsheet useful for an InDesign revision round.

1 Prepare the reviewed PDF

Save the annotated PDF before exporting. Keep an unchanged copy alongside the export so you can return to the exact passage, image, or table a comment refers to.

If reviewers returned separate copies, consolidate feedback from the same proof version first. Our guide to merging PDF comments from multiple reviewers explains that step. Combining the feedback will not resolve contradictory instructions; someone still needs to decide which change is approved.

Check that the feedback exists as editable annotations. Notes drawn into a scanned page or flattened into the page artwork will not appear as ordinary comment records. If necessary, ask for the original annotated review file.

2 Export the comments from Acrobat

In desktop Acrobat, open the reviewed PDF and its comments list. Depending on your interface, use All tools > Add comments.

Open the comments list Options menu and choose Export All To Data File. Select Acrobat XFDF Files (*.xfdf), choose a filename and location, and save. Adobe documents these steps in its importing and exporting comments guide [1]. Menu labels may vary by version.

Choose XFDF for the converter below. Renaming an FDF file to .xfdf or .csv does not convert its contents. Keep the original PDF too: the data file is a companion to the review, not a substitute for its visual context.

3 Convert XFDF into a CSV review list

XFDF is XML-based. A converter can read its annotation records and write their fields as spreadsheet columns. The Python 3 script in the appendix provides a local conversion method without uploading the review file to another service.

Save the appendix code as xfdf_to_csv.py. Put it in the same folder as your exported comments.xfdf, then open Terminal or a command prompt in that folder and run:

python xfdf_to_csv.py comments.xfdf comments.csv

Use python3 instead of python where your installation requires it. Python 3 must be installed; the script uses its standard library and requires no additional packages. If your team does not run scripts, ask a technical colleague to handle this step or use the manual method below.

The output contains the PDF page position, reviewer, annotation type, comment text, annotation ID, and reply-to ID. It keeps replies as separate rows where they are present in the XFDF and retains blank markups for checking. It skips popup, link, and form-widget records.

This is a basic review list. It does not reproduce the annotation’s position on the page, extract the words underneath a highlight, export attached files, or provide a complete review-status history. Return to the PDF for those details.

4 Open and check the list in Excel

Open comments.csv in Excel. If everything lands in one column or characters look wrong, import the file as delimited text, select a comma separator and UTF-8 encoding, and inspect the preview before loading it. Save the working review list as an .xlsx workbook.

The converter uses CSV quoting for commas, quotation marks, and line breaks inside comments. It also prefixes formula-like cell text with an apostrophe. Compare that text with the original PDF if the apostrophe appears in your imported sheet.

Its page column is the physical PDF page position, starting at 1. It may differ from printed page numbers or labels such as “iv.” Check the mapping against the reviewed PDF before relying on it.

Compare several rows with Acrobat, including a reply, a multiline note, and a markup with no written comment. Do not assume every spreadsheet row represents a separate correction: a reply may approve an earlier request, while a highlight may simply identify a passage.

For a short list use a manual spreadsheet

If the proof contains only a handful of comments, setting up a converter may take longer than building the list yourself.

Create columns for proof version, page, reviewer, comment, and outcome. Work through the Acrobat comments list, copy each written instruction, and record its location. Include replies that clarify the request and note markups that have no text.

Check the completed list against the PDF once more. This method involves manual work, but it gives a nontechnical team a usable handoff without pretending that Acrobat exported an Excel file directly.

What about exporting PDF comments to Word

Adobe documents a separate Export To Word workflow on Windows for transferring feedback to the original Word source. Its requirements include a tagged PDF created from that Word document [1].

That is a different task from making an Excel review list for an InDesign file. Choose it when your editable source is Word and the workflow’s requirements are met.

Turn the export into clear editing instructions

Add columns for the agreed change, owner, and outcome. Keep the reviewer’s original wording in its own column so your interpretation does not overwrite the request.

For example, “Change this to the new price” needs an approved value and a clear location. Record “Replace $49 with $59 in the page 4 pricing table” only after that decision has been confirmed. If two comments disagree, leave the item open until the responsible person resolves it.

After applying the approved corrections in InDesign, check the revised wording and surrounding layout. Our practical InDesign revision checklist covers that final review. An exported list helps organize the work; it does not make the source-file edits or prove that the next PDF is correct.

FormatStack’s upcoming fully automated workflow is being built to turn annotated PDF feedback into source-file edits, starting with InDesign. Contact sales@formatstack.com about launch availability and your team’s PDF-to-InDesign revision process.