Without any special software, there is a great tool called the Alt key. If you want to copy the data into excel a column at a time, you click on the top of the column in pdf and hit the Alt key as you drag across the data in that column. This assumes you have a document with recognizable text. When highlighted, hit copy and paste. Repeat for each column. Yes, this is old style, but it is handy.
If a table includes the rows, but you want to highlight a row, it is usually easier to highlight a column that contains your data. In the table to the left, you can highlight a single column using the “tab” key, and then click on the column heading that you want to highlight. It will highlight all the text in that column. But if you don't have a column that is the same color as the column you want highlighted, click on the row that you want highlighted to highlight that, then copy/paste that row into the table, and you are done. Not as useful, but there is a feature of Mac OS X that I like! I always do a “click” on every row in a table. The problem I have is that, I don't want to click on every column. I need.