Javier - thanks for re-posting Karen’s response – no sign of it otherwise.
Karen – thanks – if they are cleaning up the pdfs then the Adobe method should work. However I also use a Nuance product (PDF Converter Pro) on another PC that does a better conversion than Adobe so I suggest that your client also has a look at that before deciding which to use. (I was away last week and didn’t have access to that so I had to use Adobe. Having just tried the same file, which has multiple sheets, with Nuance it is apparent that it does a much better conversion than Adobe was able to do.) Regards, John Docherty From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Javier Valencia Sent: Thursday, 13 August 2015 9:44 a.m. To: [email protected] Subject: [RBASE-L] - Re: PDF to Excel John, Below is Karen’s response…in case you cannot see it… Javier, Javier Valencia, PE O: 913-829-0888 H: 913-397-9605 C: 913-915-3137 From: [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Karen Tellef Sent: Wednesday, August 12, 2015 4:21 PM To: [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> Subject: [RBASE-L] - Re: PDF to Excel John: I appreciate the response. Even I don't see my own posts on the list, several people don't see mine, and I don't see several of other people's posts! Because we'll be getting PDF files from different accounts in different formats, the user is going to be instructed to do a conversion then leave only two columns of what we need. They said they'd be willing to do all the cleanup rather than me having to code trying to distinguish headings, different formats from different accounts, etc. They seem interested in the Adobe utility so far.... Yes, I can easily imagine that it is not a 100% accurate conversion and would require user intervention! I remember working on a program many years ago in DOS that used an OCR program of some kind to scan really old price charts so it could be brought into an RBase historical pricing table. The OCR software said it was 90% accurate, which meant that 1 character out of every 10 would be incorrect. That's alot! So they had to scan, import it, and check every character against the original.... But it was still easier than typing. Karen -----Original Message----- From: John Docherty < <mailto:[email protected]> [email protected]> To: karentellef < <mailto:[email protected]> [email protected]> Sent: Wed, Aug 12, 2015 4:08 pm Subject: [RBASE-L] - RE: PDF to Excel Karen, I used Adobe Pro XI to do this, (which I presume is similar to the Adobe export utility Javier mentioned), however depending on the layout of the data (and the font size)on the pdf it can require some cropping to remove ‘extraneous’ headings etc. that tend to upset the export process. This can result in many columns appearing that make further use of the data in Excel rather difficult. (I was doing this last week and had no issues with some files, but others required major work before I could save them as useful Excel files. I am happy to send you some examples of what does and doesn’t work off the list if you are interested.) (I note that I don’t see your original post on the list, hence I have replied to Javier’s response.) Regards, John Docherty From: <mailto:[email protected]> [email protected] [ <mailto:[email protected]?> mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Javier Valencia Sent: Thursday, 13 August 2015 3:10 a.m. To: <mailto:[email protected]> [email protected] Subject: [RBASE-L] - RE: PDF to Excel Karen, Is this something you need to implement in an application or a one-time deal? If the first, you need to find something that has command line prompt and you will be able to run it from within R:Base. If it is a one-time deal, there are web sites where you upload your file, the site does the conversion and a downloadable file is generated. Also, if you open the PDF file using Acrobat reader and select File>>Save as Other… there is an option to save it as an Excel file using the paid Acrobat Export Utility: <https://www.acrobat.com/en_us/landing/exportpdf-pricing-b.html?trackingid=KLFWT> https://www.acrobat.com/en_us/landing/exportpdf-pricing-b.html?trackingid=KLFWT BTW, I don’t believe it was you that caused the cascading messages, messages from several users, including me, were being sent multiple times. Since then, I sent you a couple of e-mails off the List to both addresses (the last one yesterday) and I am not sure you received them; I do get yours though… Javier, Javier Valencia, PE O: 913-829-0888 H: 913-397-9605 C: 913-915-3137 From: <mailto:[email protected]> [email protected] [ <mailto:[email protected]> mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Karen Tellef Sent: Wednesday, August 12, 2015 8:58 AM To: <mailto:[email protected]> [email protected] Subject: [RBASE-L] - PDF to Excel Well, let's see if THIS message only comes to the list once!! Sorry for whatever hickup on my or their side that caused the cascading messages! Is there a utlity you've used to convert a PDF to Excel? I need to import data from a PDF file. I googled it and I see alot of "free" options (free is always cool) but I worry that those free utilities are installing other unknown things on the computer. Would be willing to pay for a quality program, of course! The utility doesn't have to be fully automated, the user is willing to do the conversion manually is that's required. Karen
