PDF to Xactimate: turn a carrier scope PDF into an import-ready ESX file.

You cannot open the PDF in Xactimate, so the estimate has to be rebuilt as an Xactimate project file first. Upload the carrier estimate PDF, or its XML export when you have it, and ESXPress writes back an importable .esx with the line items, quantities, and the printed prices still on the lines. Open Xactimate, choose File, then Import, pick the file, and accept the reprice prompt. The estimate opens editable, with folders and notes restored, instead of as a PDF you can only read. Nothing is retyped, and no price is invented.

On Google, "PDF to Xactimate" is not a format question. It is the gap between a report and an editable estimate. The carrier writes the scope in Xactimate, exports a PDF, and sends that PDF. The PDF shows the line items, quantities, and printed prices, but it is read-only: it cannot be imported, edited, or submitted back through XactAnalysis. Xactimate opens only its own project format, the .esx file.

Converting a PDF to Xactimate means rebuilding the estimate as a native .esx: line items, quantities, folders, F9 notes, and the printed price carried onto every line, so it opens in your licensed copy of Xactimate exactly where the carrier left off. The conversion is a rebuild, not a text extraction and not a spreadsheet of the same rows. ESXPress does this from the scope-of-loss PDF in about two minutes.

Two format facts settle most of the confusion. Xactimate's estimate format is .esx; its sketches use .skx, and it has no CAD workflow at all. So a "PDF to Xactimate" conversion produces an .esx, never a .dwg or .dxf drawing. If a tool promises a CAD file from a scope PDF, that is a different product, not this one.

The industry recognises three ways to close the PDF-to-Xactimate gap, and only one is fast. The first is to ask the adjuster for the original .esx. It is free and occasionally works, but carriers frequently refuse to share the file, and in storm season the reply often never comes.

The second is manual re-keying: open the PDF beside an empty Xactimate project and retype every line, quantity, and category code. That is the slow path, with a typo available at every keystroke, and the mismatch lands on the line that funds the job.

The third is automated conversion: upload the PDF, get an import-ready .esx with the lines rebuilt as real Xactimate line items. ESXPress does the third, keeps the printed price on every line, and flags anything it cannot verify instead of guessing it. The conversion reads the scope, not a picture of the scope, and rebuilds the estimate structure Xactimate expects rather than a flat list of the same rows.

The download is an Xactimate-native .esx file, not a CSV, not an Excel workbook, not a screenshot transcription. Line items arrive ready to import, quantities come straight from the PDF, and the carrier's printed unit price stays on the line.

Folders and trades are restored so the estimate is organised the way Xactimate expects, and F9 notes travel with their lines instead of being dropped. Anything the converter cannot ground is flagged for review rather than guessed, so the total never moves on its own.

Scopes of 1,000+ line items count as one conversion with no per-line surcharge, and there is no practical per-scope cap, so nothing is silently truncated and no line disappears between the PDF and the file. The result opens in your own licensed copy of Xactimate.

Pricing is per conversion, not per line. The free plan includes five conversions a month with no card. Paid plans start at $179 a month, one-off credit packs start at $29 for a single file, and there is no overage meter at any tier: at a plan limit, conversions pause instead of billing.

Every .esx built by ESXPress carries no price-list identity of its own. On import, your copy of Xactimate applies the price list loaded on your machine, which is why the software may ask you to reprice the file the moment it opens. That prompt is expected behaviour, and it is the design: your regional list prices your job, not a list stamped into the file by whoever built it.

What the conversion guarantees sits upstream of the prompt. The scope's structure, quantities, and printed prices are already on the lines when the file arrives, so a reprice can only move the lines your own list disagrees with, and a flagged line still carries the price the carrier printed.

This is also where a conversion differs from a repricer: a repricer rebuilds your numbers from its own data, while ESXPress keeps the numbers from the document the carrier sent and marks the lines it could not ground.

To import the finished file: open Xactimate, choose File, then Import, select the .esx, accept the reprice prompt, and review the lines the converter flagged. The step-by-step import guide walks the whole sequence.

A faithful conversion of the carrier's document is the floor, not the finish. ESXPress never invents a price, never pulls one from a lookup table that may not apply to the job, and never rounds a figure to fit.

Xactimate prices the converted lines from your own list on import; where a line cannot be grounded, the PDF price stays and the line is flagged so you can see exactly where the catalog could not place it. That discipline is what makes the estimate defensible when a reviewer compares the .esx to the carrier's PDF line by line.

It is also the boundary of the product: the conversion does not change the scope numbers, and a later reprice is Xactimate showing its own list, a visible, reviewable step rather than a surprise hidden inside the file. The PDF stays the source of truth for every price that carries onto a line.

A carrier estimate is usually missing something, and the omissions are the same handful every time: ice and water shield where the climate zone requires it, drip edge at the eaves and rakes, ventilation, and code-required upgrades the adjuster did not key in. Dashboard conversions run a 93-rule completeness check before you import the file, and every flag carries a citation behind it.

Each flag cites the requirement behind it, drawing on the International Residential Code and the International Energy Conservation Code where the requirement is code-based, which turns "something looks missing here" into a written finding you can send. The items carriers most often omit, ice and water shield, drip edge, ventilation, and code-required upgrades, are the ones the check exists to surface.

The audit does not change the estimate and does not invent lines. It reports what the carrier's scope did not carry, in writing, so the decision to supplement is yours and it starts from a list rather than from memory. While competitors convert what is already on the PDF, ESXPress also identifies and restores what the carrier omitted.

The conversion sits inside a set of free surfaces that answer the questions around it. The Xactimate code reference describes what each SEL code is, the category it belongs to, and the units it is measured in, built from the claim scopes processed here. The ESX Validator checks an .esx before you send it anywhere, and the reprice checker shows which lines carry a code the catalog recognises.

A step-by-step import guide walks the Xactimate side: where to drop the file, what the reprice prompt means, and how to review the lines it flags. Sibling pages cover the adjacent intents: PDF to ESX for the ESX-side workflow, the ESX file page for what the format is, and the Xactimate-to-PDF direction for what an estimate loses when it stays a PDF.