Photo of a printed timetable to Excel
Short answer
Photograph each page or panel of the printed timetable in QuickScan, check the highlighted cells, and export to Excel. Times written with a colon (14:30) stay exactly as printed, as text; stop names land in the first column, and each page becomes its own sheet. Use TIMEVALUE to turn times into real times when you need to calculate.
On a computer? Point your iPhone's camera at the code to open QuickScan in the App Store.
3 free exports, then a one-time unlock. No subscription.
Bus and coach timetables at the depot, ferry schedules, school transport rotas, delivery runs, shift patterns pinned to a wall: printed timetables are dense grids of times that nobody wants to retype. They're also exactly the kind of table that photographs well — when you know what to watch for.
How do I turn a printed timetable into Excel?
- Check the operator's website first: many publish timetables as data or PDF, which beats any photo.
- Flatten the page — unfold a leaflet fully and scan each panel separately. Avoid glare on glossy paper.
- In QuickScan, tap Scan a table; capture the weekday and weekend tables as separate pages.
- Check the highlighted cells. Look at times in particular: a
1read as7changes a departure. - Export to Excel. Each page is a sheet; colon times are text, exactly as printed.
Times as text, and when to convert
Keeping 14:30 as text means nothing changes it on the way in. (Timetables that print 1430 or 14.30 are different: those look like numbers to any spreadsheet — 0930 keeps its zero as text, 1430 becomes the number 1430 — so tidy that column with Find and Replace before converting.) For lookups and display, that's what you want. To calculate — journey times, gaps between services — convert a copy of the column:
To a real time: =TIMEVALUE(B2), formatted as hh:mm.
Journey time: =TIMEVALUE(C2)-TIMEVALUE(B2), formatted as h:mm.
After midnight: times like 00:15 on a late service belong to the next day; =MOD(TIMEVALUE(C2)-TIMEVALUE(B2),1) handles an arrival earlier on the clock than the departure.
Excel's own conversions are explained in dates and times wrong in Excel.
Things timetables do that spreadsheets don't
- Merged headers: “Monday–Friday” spanning several columns arrives as one cell above the first of them. Fill it across, or move it into a column of its own.
- Footnote marks:
14:30aor09:15*. Remove the marks with Find and Replace and keep a note of what they meant. - Dashes and dots for “doesn't stop”: they come through as printed; replace them with blanks if you'll calculate.
- Stops as rows, journeys as columns: most timetables are printed this way. Use Copy › Paste Special › Transpose if you need journeys as rows.
What to expect
- Works well: printed grids with clear rows of stops and columns of times, with or without ruling lines.
- Needs checking: very small print, glossy leaflets with glare, columns squeezed together.
- Not yet: handwritten schedules on whiteboards or forms.
On a screen instead of paper? A screenshot reads better than any photo. Choosing the file type: CSV or Excel.
On a computer? Point your iPhone's camera at the code to open QuickScan in the App Store.
3 free exports, then a one-time unlock. No subscription.
Questions
Will departure times stay as printed?
Times written with a colon, like 14:30, are stored exactly as printed, as text, in QuickScan's Excel file. Timetables that print times as 1430 or 14.30 look like numbers to any spreadsheet, so check those columns. Convert colon times to real times with =TIMEVALUE(B2) when you need to calculate.
Can it read a timetable leaflet folded in three?
Scan each panel as its own page, flat and straight. Each becomes a sheet; copy them side by side or under each other afterwards.
What about footnote marks next to times?
Letters or symbols printed next to a time (14:30a, 09:15*) come through with the time. Remove them with Find and Replace, keeping a note of what they meant.
Is there a better source than a photo?
Often: many operators publish timetables as data (for example GTFS feeds) or PDFs. Check the operator's website first; a PDF timetable can be opened in QuickScan directly, and reads better than a photo of paper.