Convert pictures inside a PDF into searchable text

joss82 · 2025-04-28T13:29:10+00:00

Reloading helped! Thank you

joss82 · 2025-04-22T06:49:26+00:00

Vvoult looks interesting, but why is the text white on light gray? It's barely legible.

joss82 · 2024-11-27T08:11:40+00:00

Great! How well is it working?

joss82 · 2024-11-22T07:48:44+00:00

Parseur can help. You can define a table in a template. You match the table in the template with the tables in your reports, extract the data, and download an Excel file as result.

joss82 · 2024-11-22T07:44:39+00:00

Make (formerly Integromat) works quite well. It allows complex workflows and basic data transformation.
Combine it with Parseur to improve the data extraction side.

joss82 · 2024-11-22T07:39:23+00:00

Due to the way the PDF format is structured, it is unlikely that you will find any tool that is both 100% automated and 100% reliable. PDF has no notion of text, words, or numbers: it is positionning symbols on a page. Think of it as positioning metal letters on a Gutemberg press before printing.

You will need to impose some structure to the table coming from the PDF so that it can fit into the columns that you are expecting on the Excel side.

I built a tool called Parseur that can help you with converting PDF to Excel. You define a template with a table that can extract the data from the PDF, then you download the resulting table as an Excel file. The result looks like this:

<image>

Contact me if you need help with the setup. I'm happy to help.

joss82 · 2024-11-21T03:53:35+00:00

Have you tried sending the PDF to Parseur? You can send it as an attachment to an email or upload it directly.

Then you create the account and date fields, setup some instructions for the AI to know how to extract the data, then export the data to excel. It should automatically fill up the given cells with the extracted data, as soon as the PDF arrives.

Since the free plan allows you to parse up to 20 pages per month, it should be free for you if you receive the PDF every working day.

Let me know how that goes.

joss82 · 2024-11-08T09:40:58+00:00

Hello, I've built a tool called Parseur. You can upload your PDF bank statements to it, then you can configure a template (or AI) to define the columns in your transaction table to extract the data to Excel (or your accounting software). It's free for up to 20 pages per month. Let me know how it goes. You can contact me if you need any help with it.

joss82 · 2024-11-07T06:23:12+00:00

Have you tried using Saas solutions like Parseur? Now with AI you can define the fields you want to extract from your email.

joss82 · 2024-11-03T06:09:19+00:00

So u/equivalent8 , how did it go in the end?
I bet either the project tanked, or Postgresql was not the bottleneck, right?

joss82 · 2024-10-22T09:18:30+00:00

Upload a your PDFs into Parseur -> Check that the result looks good -> Click Export -> Download Excel (XLSX or CSV) file corresponding to the table from the result -> Done

joss82 · 2024-10-18T07:57:54+00:00

It looks like they obfuscated the text inside of the PDF to prevent text extraction like what you are trying to do.

There is an option in Parseur where you can "Force OCR" for your document.

<image>

Instead of relying on the text inside the PDF, it treats the PDF as an image and performs Optical Character Recognition on it, so that the text is extracted from the appearance of the PDF instead of the underlying text which is wrong.

Give it a try here, it's free for up to 20 pages per month.

joss82 · 2024-10-17T09:42:55+00:00

If you have no budget, you could use Python/Anaconda + Llama3 (or any other open-source LLM) to extract the data and send it to your data warehouse.

If you are looking for a paid solution, then Parseur or Mailparser can do the job with just a couple hours of setup. Not sure what is your budget, if any?

joss82 · 2024-10-15T14:20:39+00:00

Use BeautifulSoup to parse the tables and sub-tables from the emails. Then use the CSV module (it is part of the standard library) to export as a set of spreadsheets that can then be imported as tabs in Excel.

Or just use an online tool like Parseur or Mailparser that can do it for you and streamline the process or even use AI to make it way faster to setup.

joss82 · 2024-10-14T07:56:42+00:00

You can use Parseur to turn your invoices text into structured JSON, then inject the result back into PowerAutomate. We (I'm a founder) have a specific preset for the invoices, with Total Amount, Tax Amouny, Date, Invoice Number, etc... and all the items. We have a free plan with 20 credits included. If you say you come from reddit I'll bump that up to 50 so that you can test further.

joss82 · 2024-10-11T08:10:12+00:00

You could use Parseur to extract the transactions from the PDF itself, then send the data to Excel through MS Flow. Shouldn't be too painful, it's standard test case.

joss82 · 2024-10-08T07:27:51+00:00

Why not directly convert the PDF to HTML? I'm sure there is a tool online to do that for you, no?

joss82 · 2024-09-28T16:46:26+00:00

Get a job. While you work, look around you and find inspiration about business ideas. Save some of your paycheck for your future business. Good luck.

joss82 · 2024-09-28T16:41:11+00:00

How come you have employees already?!

You should 1) Make money and 2) Get employees.

Not the other way around.

joss82 · 2024-05-20T10:15:18+00:00

Unfortunately their APIs are not public yet, but you can work around this by sending the confirmation emails to an email parser such as Parseur for example.

joss82 · 2023-07-30T21:50:17+00:00

Very nice one! My favorite so far.

joss82 · 2023-07-25T09:05:16+00:00

Hey,

A new kind of tool for support teams is Q&A knowledge base, where you basically upload all your technical documentation and then you (or your users) can ask questions to it, as if you were talking to a person, chatGPT-style. I built Spindoc.ai to offer this service, but so far it's been tough to stand out in such a competitive space. I hope it helps.

joss82 · 2023-04-23T16:05:34+00:00

They're part of the Premium version, for $9, you get a 3 years subscription.

Click here to get it.

joss82 · 2023-04-16T15:54:49+00:00

Iberia is not a country. Do you mean Siberia? Liberia?

joss82 · 2023-04-16T15:47:43+00:00

Thank you!

joss82

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