4 Replies Latest reply on May 28, 2017 2:52 PM by benp37273899

Collecting, merging and sorting data from non-form PDFs

benp37273899 May 27, 2017 4:33 PM

Greetings:

I'm a new Acrobat user and this week I went through a couple of training courses on Lynda (plus several Adobe videos) in hopes of finding a straightforward method for what I need to accomplish. But so far, no luck...

Here's my dilemma: My retail chain customers send me purchase orders via PDFs. Each one-page file has release information for a particular store in their chain and a single order often includes over 100 PDFs. Each PDF could have from one to 10 item/quantity listings (all stores do not receive the same items or quantities).

The pertinent data I need is the combined totals for each item type (just for tracking purposes). I'd like to export directly to Excel files that I already use for tracking but from what I've read, this can be pretty complex to arrange (if you are not a programmer). Any spreadsheet that summarizes item/quantity would help me get the job done- I can easily transfer the totals manually.

One possibility I looked for was a way to design an "Export Template" where I could specify data fields to merge, based on all possible item types in a stack of PDFs. I couldn't find any method for this. I tried exporting to Excel but it makes a big mess by including all information on a page.

If anyone can offer me some guidance on how I could address my need, I'd sincerely appreciate it!

Thank you!

-Ben

1. Re: Collecting, merging and sorting data from non-form PDFs

try67 May 28, 2017 1:34 AM (in response to benp37273899)

Without form fields such tasks are *very *difficult to implement. They're
basically only possible if the files have an identical layout and the text
you want to extract can be identified by its location/textual
context/format. From your description it sounds like your files have a lot
of variation between them. If that's the case it will be nearly impossible,
or at least very complex, to extract the data you're after in a reliable
manner.
If you're interested I'm happy to take a look at some sample files and let
you know whether I think it's feasible or not. You can send them to me
privately at try6767 at gmail.com, or upload them to a file-sharing website
(Dropbox, Google Drive, Adobe Cloud, etc.) and post the links to them here.

On Sun, May 28, 2017 at 1:34 AM, benp37273899 <forums_noreply@adobe.com>
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2. Re: Collecting, merging and sorting data from non-form PDFs

benp37273899 May 28, 2017 9:12 AM (in response to try67)

Hello try67,

Thank you for your response and offer to help, I sincerely appreciate it. You are right about the variance- each customer's output is different due to their particular purchasing software, plus there is some variance within PDFs due to number of items.

Before I go any further trying to set up a sorting process for each, I'll find out if my customers are willing to provide a file summary to accompany their POs. That would not only simplify things for me, it should ensure greater accuracy. If this approach doesn't work, then I'd like to take you up on your offer.

I hope you are having a nice weekend- thanks again!
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3. Re: Collecting, merging and sorting data from non-form PDFs

JR_Boulay May 28, 2017 11:29 AM (in response to benp37273899)

This app was made for you: PDFZone App | PDF Extraction from predefined areas to CSV file
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4. Re: Collecting, merging and sorting data from non-form PDFs

benp37273899 May 28, 2017 2:52 PM (in response to JR_Boulay)

Thank you for the advice, JR. PDFZone appears to be an excellent approach, although I did notice there is still room for error and this is a concern to me. If I cannot get the data I need directly from my customers, I am certainly going to give this software a try.

I hope you enjoy the rest of your holiday, thanks again for your help!
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Collecting, merging and sorting data from non-form PDFs

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