Importing data from a PDF

[mikewilde]

Version: 2004
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger)
Processor: Power PC

Is there anyway of importing data from a table in a PDF file into Excel?

I've seen lots of tools on Google to do it but all for PCs not mac.

Did anyone know of any?

Thanks,

Mike

 

[roblake]

Last year at tax time, I found several such applications by going to versiontracker.com and searching for PDF. Testing them, their capabilities varied widely for the text and tables from my broker/banker's annual tax report.

 

[CyberTaz]

Hi Mike -

PDF is a graphic format, so unless it's made using special features in more
sophisticated PDF creators (such as Acrobat) the content is actually a
picture rather than text. It then has to be read by an Optical Character
Recognition (OCR) program which converts it to editable text.

There's a wide range of accuracy among apps used for that purpose, and even
the best can have serious problems with some documents. Your best bet is to
contact the source & see if the file can be supplied in a text-based format
to begin with. However, you may be able to simply use the Preview app
supplied with OS X to copy the text content & paste into a worksheet (Paste
Special may be useful).

HTH |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac