Extract pages from a PDF that have certain “text or numbers”? 2

[bhphoto]

Hi there,

How are you today?

Is there a possibility to get from acrobat or any PDF tool to extract pages that only have a certain “text or numbers”?

Here is an explanation, we asked from one of our vendors to give us all bills form last year, so they answered us that they have it archived with into a PDF format and it is saved by month but they wont give it to us since they combined all of their clients in one file and they wouldn’t give us the info from our competitors, but they gave us an option which is:

If we give them and idea of how to extract all of our bills only from these PDF’s they will do it, so I am thinking if there is a way that acrobat or any PDF tool should be able to look for certain text like a customer ID and only these pages to extract into a new file?!

I would appreciate very much your help and any ideas are welcomed

Thanks-in-Advanced
Joel Braver

 

[tgreer]

This can be done, but only in a roundabout manner. My approach was with JavaScript. I made a function, and then a menuitem to execute the function. It's a hack, since there is no API into the search results. Also, my code actually divides the documents into discrete sections based on the search string, rather than a "targeted" extraction. But you hopefully get the idea and can derive something useful.

var nStart;
var nEnd;
var nFileName;

app.addMenuItem(
  { cName:   "SectionK", 
    cParent: "File",
    cExec:   "K();",
    cEnable: "event.rc = (event.target != null);",
    nPos: 0
  });
 
function K() {
  var i = 0;
  var p = 0;
  var ret = 0;
  var lastPage = (this.numPages - 1);
  var rootFile = this.path.split(".pdf")[0];
  searchHits = new Array();

  var x = search.query("Your Search here","ActiveDoc");

  app.alert("Wait for search to complete, then click OK.");

  while (ret==0) 
    { ret = this.pageNum;
    };

  while (true)
    { p = this.pageNum; 
      searchHits[i] = p; 
      app.execMenuItem("FindAgain");
      if (this.pageNum == p) { break };
      i++;
    };

  while (i > -1)
  {
    nStart = searchHits[i];
    nEnd   = lastPage;
    nFileName = rootFile + "_" + i + ".pdf";

    this.extractPages(nStart,nEnd,nFileName);
    this.deletePages(nStart,nEnd);

    lastPage = (nStart - 1);
    i--;  
  };

  this.closeDoc(true);

};

Thomas D. Greer

http://www.tgreer.com

Providing PostScript & PDF
Training, Development & Consulting

 

[bhphoto]

Wow, that was fast!

First of all thanks a lot for your reply and for the code you gave, for now I am still looking for a tool that is more user end and more automated and I hope that there is one out there (if I find one I will let you guys know), if I will not find one I will defiantly use this.

Thanks again.

 

[tgreer]

There are a lot of tools out there. Try this Google search:

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=PDF+Split

Thomas D. Greer

http://www.tgreer.com

Providing PostScript & PDF
Training, Development & Consulting

 

[bhphoto]

Hey guys,

I found many software that could do this, but the best I found for this is one that has been made just for this it is called “PDF Split File” makers are

http://www.traction-software.co.uk/

Thanks again for everybody

Have a wonderful day

Joel Braver