I Built a Tool to Convert Invoice PDFs into Excel - Here’s What Surprised Me

I recently built a small tool that converts invoice PDFs into Excel spreadsheets. To be honest, when I started this whole thing, I assumed this would be a fairly straightforward project that I could vibe code in a few hours. I'm a software engineer by day and I already run a semi-successful iOS app business so thought this would be a piece of cake. The idea was simple. Upload a PDF, extract a table, export a spreadsheet. But it turns out invoice PDFs are one of the messiest, most deceptive file formats I’ve ever worked with. What looked like a simple file conversion problem ended up teaching me a lot about how data actually exists in the real world, and why so many “simple automation” problems stay unsolved longer than you’d expect. Why this, and aren't there already converters? The original idea came from my wife. She is a HR consultant working from home and I've helped her do her books in the past. Together we've set up some pretty sophisticated spreadsheets for her, but all of this