Tablizer

Convert SQL to PDF Online

Paste a SQL 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.

From

The only part of this site that uses a server. The address is sent to it so the page can be fetched, because a browser is not allowed to fetch someone else's page itself. Your own files are never involved.

Nothing here is uploaded. The parsing happens on this page.
Edit
Paste or upload something above and it will appear here.
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The output will appear here once there is a table to convert.

What SQL is

SQL here means the statements that move a table into a database: INSERT INTO with a VALUES list, and optionally the CREATE TABLE that defines the columns.

Anyone seeding a database, moving a spreadsheet into an application, or writing a migration.

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 SQL to PDF

Column names come from the INSERT column list, or from a CREATE TABLE if one is present. Quoted strings are unquoted, doubled quotes are collapsed, and NULL becomes an empty cell.

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 SQL to PDF

SQL records 5 things about a table that PDF has no way to hold.

SQL 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.

An empty cell and a missing one are the same thing in PDF, so a null and an empty string in the SQL both come out blank and can no longer be told apart.

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.

SQL 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 SQL if you will need the values again.

Questions

How do I convert SQL to PDF?

Paste your SQL 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.

Are the generated INSERT statements safe to run?

Quotes in your data are escaped, so the statements are syntactically correct. They are not parameterised, which is fine for a one-off import you are running yourself and not fine as a pattern for application code that takes user input.

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 SQL 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 SQL 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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