Convert PDF to Excel

[CarpalT]

We have some reports stored online as pdf files that we would like to convert to Excel if possible. Can anyone comment on the idea and/or what products are available to accomplish? We are not looking for a pricey solution, but rather an inexpensive product or series of steps where we can convert a few reports to data in the next couple days.
Thank you!

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[Eggles]

This is cobbled together from a previous thread, so may not be grammatically correct, but it certainly is possible even with Acrobat Reader to go from PDF to Excel.

In Reader, use the Column Select tool (Shift-V in V5) and select each column of data separately, then paste it into the cell at the top of the column where you want it to appear in the Excel doc. The data should just flow into a column.

One tip - make sure the Excel cell format is set correctly. For example, although the data I was transferring was almost all numerals, Excel did not accept zeros at the start of the figures. By changing the format to 'text', everything came through exactly as it had been in the PDF.

If the text does not appear as it did in the PDF, it probably means that you don't have the font used in the PDF installed on the computer you are making the Excel file in. Highlight all the text and change it to a font you know is on your computer.

If there are blank "cells" in the PDF table, when you copy and paste a single column, the data below moves up by the number of blank cells (i.e. that there are blanks is not understood in the transfer). I found the only solution was to look at each column after pasting, and shift all the cells down one cell below the cell supposed to be blank. I didn't find any workaround to this, but since I didn't have too many blank cells, I just worked through each one individually. It became easy after a while as once I had pasted the first column, it was easy to see where a blank cell had occurred in subsequent columns as the bottom of the column didn't match up to the previous one(s).

It may be easier to do this in later versions of Acrobat.

 

[CarpalT]

Thank you Eggles, I appreciate the work you took in responding to my question. I spent a lot of time yesterday trying different options. Adobe 6.0 allows you to select a table and paste it into excel. It does a really nice job, however it doesn't (far as I can tell) allow you to select & copy more than one page at a time. Since our reports are about 1,200 pages - each ... so much for that!
I tried exporting from Adobe 6.0 to several formats, including a couple different text formats and importing that into Excel. .csv seems to work the best. All the rest are pretty messy.
I downloaded and tested a trial version of Able2Extract, but that was pretty messy. I think because our reports are wrapped (each line of data actually is 3 lines long on the page) Able2Extract didn't know what to do with it. It also brought in the page breaks, page numbers, everything on every page. Again, I know how to deal with that once I get it to Excel, but in dealing with multiple huge reports I was hoping for a tool that would be smart enough to handle some of it for me. I haven't tried your suggestion but I'm thinking the sheer size of my reports would kill me in the column spacing issue.
I appreciate your interest in the problem. I really do think the wrapped format of our reports is a big part of the problem, don't you?


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[Eggles]

>> I really do think the wrapped format of our reports is a big part of the problem, don't you?<<

Highly likely.

>>Since our reports are about 1,200 pages - each ... so much for that!<<

I don't envy you. Would it be possible to get hold of the original (Excel?) files the PDFs were made from?

 

[CarpalT]

No the originals are not available. Bummer.
I reviewed the options with the requestor, and we're going to think of a plan B. We probably could use Monarch for this but it's pretty pricey for a one time project.
Thanks for applying your knowledge to my problem!

The world is full of good people.