Extract text from pdf 1

[linousa]

Is it achievable in vpf or better do it outside? I've been doing it outside for a while, it is fully automated and works fine, but I don't want to rely on third party and wanted to check what's on the table.

 

[Mike Lewis]

You can do it from within VFP, in the sense that the user doesn't need to go out to Windows to execute a separate program. But you can't avoid reliance on a third-party tool.

There are no native VFP commands or functions for reading a PDF. But whatever tool you are currently using to extract the text, you should be able to execute it from within VFP, either through Automation or ShellExecute(). Obviously we can't tell you how to do that without knowing which utility you are using.

To do the job natively in VFP, you would have to know the full details of the internal PDF file format. I dare say that information would be available somewhere, but to write code to translate it to normal text sounds like a horrendous task.

Mike

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Mike Lewis (Edinburgh, Scotland)

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