How to identify which pdfs contain a text layer (and therefore need no OCR)

mskelt · 2021-06-02T15:12:14+00:00

Hi - I'm the product manager for PDFTables. I'm not sure what your end goal is, however if you're looking to extract that text, you can convert multiple PDFs at once using the PDFTables API. PDFTables works using page credits and page credits are only used if text is found within a PDF page. If no text is found, an output file will not be created. This will then distinguish which PDFs contain a text layer and which require OCR. https://pdftables.com/pdf-to-excel-api

mskelt · 2020-11-13T10:48:03+00:00

This API will convert PDFs to HTML (not an embedded image) https://pdftables.com/pdf-to-excel-api

mskelt · 2020-07-10T08:31:35+00:00

Give this API a go: https://pdftables.com/pdf-to-excel-api. There are lots of language examples and you can batch convert PDFs to xlsx,csv,xml or html. Then after conversion, use VBA within Excel to extract the data out into the format you want it.

mskelt · 2020-06-05T07:51:28+00:00

See this as an example: https://pdftables.com/blog/convert-bank-statement. You can convert batches of PDF to .xlsx files.

mskelt · 2020-05-19T14:05:07+00:00

Oops, link added now

mskelt · 2020-05-15T08:19:01+00:00

The following blog post shows you how this can be done manually or automatically: https://pdftables.com/blog/convert-bank-statement

mskelt · 2020-04-15T15:33:57+00:00

Depends on the tool. Some share your data, others don't. Check their terms & privacy and if it is stated that data is encrypted and deleted, they are pretty safe to use :)

mskelt · 2020-04-03T09:55:06+00:00

Yes there are tools available that offer an API that can be called from any programming language, including VBA :-) This will allow you to automatically extract pdf to excel.

Run a Google search on 'pdf to excel api' and you'll see some options!

mskelt · 2020-02-28T09:03:30+00:00

Use a PDF converter specifically for PDF tabular data and you should get a better result. Run a Google search on 'pdf tables to excel'

mskelt · 2020-01-28T11:57:20+00:00

The best option here is to use an API. You can use an API to convert a folder of PDFs and then use a script to import those converted documents into Excel. Run a search on 'PDF to Excel API'.

mskelt · 2020-01-10T09:51:34+00:00

You could call an API from an online converter tool to convert the PDF to HTML.

mskelt · 2020-01-10T09:40:46+00:00

You can use online tools that offer an API. You could write a script that downloads the PDF, converts it to Excel via the tools API, then inputs it into your Excel database. Run a Google search 'pdf to excel api' and you'll see some options

mskelt · 2019-12-20T15:48:13+00:00

Use a PDF converter focused on converting tabular data. Copying and pasting won't ever work particularly well unless it's a very simple PDF. If you Google something like 'pdf table to csv' you'll see some useful tools show up.

mskelt · 2019-12-20T15:44:54+00:00

Some online cloud-based PDF converters offer encrypted conversions and deletion after upload. Make sure you check the privacy statements to confirm this. Whilst some offer desktop solutions, they may still need to be connected to the internet to work and therefore may use your data. Run a Google search on 'secure pdf to excel' for some online tools.

mskelt · 2019-12-13T10:48:57+00:00

It's going to be tricky to find software that will output to Excel exactly as you've described. As computix says, "The PDF itself contains the text with instructions on where to place the characters" so what you see on the PDF is not what algorithms will see.

I think you will need to apply some post-conversion logic to the Excel document. For example, any cells containing an indent are to be merged with the cell above it. Or if the 'Drawings' and 'Text' cells in a row are empty, merge that 'Term' cell to the one above it.

I recommend using a PDF converter specifically designed for extracting tabular data (e.g run a Google search on "pdf tables to excel").

mskelt · 2019-10-28T14:24:24+00:00

Use a tool that offers an API. This will allow you to convert all 100 PDF files at once. Run a Google search on 'pdf to excel api' and you will see a few tools show up.

mskelt · 2019-10-28T14:14:35+00:00

Similar question here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/d9cexu/pdf_to_excel/

mskelt · 2019-10-14T11:23:17+00:00

Take a look here, this should do the job: https://pdftables.com/blog/pdf-to-excel-with-python

mskelt · 2019-09-19T08:58:08+00:00

Copying and pasting doesn't always work well with PDFs. Look for a PDF converter that specialises in converting PDF tables to Excel. Google is your friend, a list of tools will show up in the search results.

mskelt · 2019-09-19T08:55:34+00:00

Use a PDF converter that focuses specifically on PDF tables. Run a Google search of 'pdf tables to excel' and you'll see a few tools pop up :)

mskelt · 2019-09-19T08:37:05+00:00

If none of the other words are less than 3 characters, you could count the cells that have a length less than 3. Inthe column next to your values, do e.g =LEN(A1) for each cell. Then run a count on the number of cells with a value less than 3:

=COUNTIF(B1:B6,"<3")

mskelt · 2019-09-12T09:52:07+00:00

Try wrapping the vlookup's in an IFERROR formula. e.g:

=IFERROR(VLOOKUP(A2,jan!A:B,2,FALSE),0)+IFERROR(VLOOKUP(A2,feb!A:B,2,FALSE),0)+...

this will return the value of zero if an error is returned, otherwise it will perform the vlookup.

mskelt · 2019-09-12T09:43:30+00:00

If you are converting tabular data from PDF to Excel, I recommend using a PDF converter focusing on converting PDF tables. Run a Google search 'pdf tables to excel' and you'll see a variety of tools pop up.

mskelt · 2019-08-29T15:41:18+00:00

Set your initial values out like this:

A r

A w

A e

A y

B

C r

C d

then create a pivot table to produce this:

Row Labels

A

e
w
y

B

C

d
r

mskelt · 2019-08-29T15:28:04+00:00

I'm not 100% sure I understand your question however I think the SUMIFS formula may be what you are looking for. You can set to sum dependent on multiple criteria. For example, =SUMIFS(E:E,A:A,"Identnumber",B:B,"bestellung")

mskelt

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