Tablizer

Convert IIF to PDF Online

Paste an IIF table below, edit it if you need to, and get PDF back. The conversion runs in your browser, so nothing is uploaded, there is no size limit and there is no signup.

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The output will appear here once there is a table to convert.

What IIF is

IIF is QuickBooks Desktop's import and export format: tab-separated, with several tables interleaved in one file. A line starting with an exclamation mark defines the columns for a record type, and the data lines that follow begin with that type's keyword.

QuickBooks Desktop users, and the bookkeepers who have to move data into and out of it.

What PDF is

PDF describes a page: glyphs at coordinates, not rows and columns. A table in a PDF is a visual arrangement, not a data structure.

Reports, invoices, statements and anything sent to be read rather than processed.

What changes when you convert IIF to PDF

The largest table in the file is used, which is almost always the transactions. A typical export holds TRNS rows for the transactions and SPL rows for their split lines; those are two tables, not one, and combining them would produce a column layout that fits neither.

The table is drawn into a paginated document with the header repeated on every page, so a long table stays readable past page one. Page size, orientation and font size are all adjustable.

What carries over from IIF to PDF

IIF records 4 things about a table that PDF has no way to hold.

IIF knows which of its values are numbers. PDF keeps only their appearance, so nothing downstream can sort or sum them without someone reading them back off the page first.

Nothing in PDF records that the first row is a header. It is drawn at the top and looks like one, which is all that is left of the distinction.

IIF can be read one record at a time. PDF has to be complete before it means anything, so the whole table is held in memory while it is written and a file that gets cut off part way through is not partly usable - it is unusable.

PDF is the end of the line for this data. Reading the table back out of it is a separate and much harder problem than writing it, so keep the IIF if you will need the values again.

Questions

How do I convert IIF to PDF?

Paste your IIF into the box above or drop the file onto it. Check the table in the grid, then copy or download the PDF from the output panel. It takes one step and the data never leaves your browser.

Why does my IIF file have two sets of headers?

Because it holds two tables. TRNS lines are transactions and SPL lines are the splits belonging to them, and each has its own column definition. They are separate exports that happen to share a file.

Can I get my table back out of the PDF?

Out of one made here, yes, because the text is real text. Out of a scanned document, no. A scan is an image of a page, and pulling data from it needs optical character recognition, which is a different job with a different failure rate.

Can I convert the PDF back to IIF afterwards?

Not mechanically. PDF keeps how the table looks, not what it held, so going back means reading the values off the page again. Keep the IIF if you will need it.

Will my numbers still be numbers?

They will look the same, but PDF holds no values at all - only their appearance. Nothing can add up a column of a PDF without the numbers being read back out of it first.

Is there a limit on file size?

No. The work happens on your own machine, so the limit is your machine's memory rather than an upload cap. A file with tens of thousands of rows converts in a second or two.

Is my data uploaded anywhere?

No. The parsing and generating are done by JavaScript running on this page. You can watch the network tab while you convert and see that nothing is sent.

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