Plenty of suppliers still send price lists as PDFs: sometimes a clean export from their system, sometimes a scan of a printed sheet. Upload either one like any other file. Seller Sync rebuilds the table and grades it the same way it grades a spreadsheet.
Native vs. scanned PDFs
- Native PDFs are generated digitally (exported from Excel, an ERP, or accounting software). The text inside is real text you could select and copy. These read quickly and accurately.
- Scanned PDFs are photographs or scans of paper, so the "text" is really an image. These work too, but the page has to be read visually, which takes longer and is more sensitive to scan quality.
You don't need to tell us which kind you have; it's detected automatically.
What we extract
From each PDF, Seller Sync rebuilds the underlying table: item numbers, descriptions, units per case, and costs, one row per product. Section headings, page headers and footers, and decorative elements are recognized and set aside rather than treated as products.
After grading, the rebuilt table is available as Source rows from Results: fix a misread cost, correct a garbled description, or delete a stray row, then grade again. It's worth a quick skim, especially for scanned files, since a wrong cost flows through to every profitability number downstream.
Grading time
PDFs take longer than spreadsheets because there's no ready-made table to read; we have to reconstruct it.
Grading a PDF starts on upload like any other file. The estimated time depends on page count and document complexity. More on timing in Large catalogs and grading times.
Credits measure grading work. Each run shows what it may hold before it starts and what it used when it finishes. Grading a PDF includes rebuilding its table. Amazon market data lookups never use credits. Each run holds an estimate when it starts and can grow that hold from your balance if it needs more; only the credits the run actually uses are kept, and the rest are released.
Credits for a failed grading run are restored. If you cancel a run, completed work is kept and unused reserved credits are released.
Tips for best results
- Text-based beats photographed. If your supplier can export a PDF from their system instead of scanning a printout, ask for that version. Accuracy is noticeably better.
- One price list per file. A PDF that combines a price list with an order form, terms sheet, or marketing pages gives the reader more to untangle. Where possible, upload just the price list pages.
- Straight, legible scans. For scanned sheets: flat pages, decent resolution, no heavy skew or shadows. If you can comfortably read the costs, so can we.
- Ask for a spreadsheet anyway. If the supplier can send CSV or Excel, that's always the fastest, most accurate path. See Supported file types and limits.
Limits
The same caps apply as for any other upload: 50 MB per file and 50,000 rows per catalog. If a PDF fails to read at all, check Common file errors and fixes. A corrupt download or a password-protected file are the usual culprits.