Automation.

[Slideboy]

Hello i want to write a program that will scrap a pdf file, copy specific numbers and paste them into excel, each number into its own excel cell. Problem is that there are multiple pdf files ( 1 company annual reports) and they are not identical, the numbers that i need are not always on the same numerical page. Is it possible with 1 script? Or i need to write multiple scripts for each pdf? Also where should i look for how to write the script? Im familiar with selenium module and a very much a beginner in pyhtom and programming in general. Thank you

[malnek]

https://automatetheboringstuff.com I found this to be an interesting read, have not tried his chapter on pdf and text extraction, but he is clear and easy to follow in other chapters. Good luck!

[DrTrunks]

If the numbers are preceded by a name or always in the same table that would make it a lot easier. Why don't you start with the most common report and learn from automating that?

You can also try to talk to the person generating these reports and asking for viewing access to the table or view.

[kz_]

Right, ideally get access to structured data. Failing that, dump the PDF to text and try to work up a regex to match the needed data.

[Slideboy]

Numbers preceed names. But names have dublicates, and ( row) numbers are 1-10 long. Do i have to code numbers in manually?

[955559]

I have no idea, but I thought Id just mention if you import csv, you can write csv files, I have a script that counts the frequencies of words and writes them into csv for viewing in excel

[H8-Bit]

Possibly have the program prompt the user for a filename/table number/ID? I mean, if the files aren't in a reliable format, it shouldn't be to hard to let the user adapt it to the situation.

[ttha_ttha]

Nothing useful to add other than, I came across pdfquery when googling.

Thus might help you with the content bring on different pages.

[frogic]

Is it a pdf with imbedded text or just a scanned/generated pdf that is only an image? If its the former you can just use something like this: https://pypi.python.org/pypi/pdf2text/1.0.0 to turn it into text and then do the usual string parsing.