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Importing Data From Pdf Files

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Happy Business Spreadsheets has developed a free Excel program to extract and import PDF data into Excel which can be downloaded and used without restriction.

There is a common need to extract and import specific data from PDF files into Excel. Since Excel does not natively support the reading of PDF content, utilities are needed to convert the PDF file content for the Excel format. Several commercial applications accomplish this; however it is often the case where only specific data is required to be imported from multiple PDF files into one structured format.

We created such an application by using VBA code in conjunction with an open source PDF to Text conversion utility, which can be found at Foolabs.

[Download the free PDF data import Excel program here]

The program relies on the conversion utility (included in the download) and all PDF files to reside in the same directory as the Excel application. Text or data to extract are defined in the Control sheet by specifying start text, end text and multiple replacements routines with wildcard support. This enables flexibility to obtain comparable data from multiple PDF files based on patterns independent of different PDF file structures.

As many extraction rules as required can be set in order to create a table of information imported by extraction rule and PDF file name. Information on how to set up rules is available within the Excel application with a help icon and cell comments. The VBA code is commented and open for modification.

Any improvements or new features to the code are welcome to be posted here so that we can update the download version to the benefit of everyone.
 Excel Business Forums Administrator
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Confused
Hi All. need your help.
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Hi All,My pdf files look similar to the below format. I couldnt attach  sample file as i couldnt see the option. Can you please help, with the below set up of pdf files, I need the fields underlined in a new excel sheet. How can i use your tool for the same. Kindly help me. As i work on around 80 - 90 pdf files on a daily basis to extract these underlined rows manually from each one.Thanks a lot for your help.The fields are 1.Reference number2. member id3.   Name4.Policy Number 5.Date of Birth6.mm/dd/yyyy7. Drug Name                                                      Reference Number : XXXXXXX         Member ID   XXXXXXXXXX              Telephone Number            xxxxxxxxxxxxx   Name                         XXXXXXXX         Fax Number   Policy Number         XXXXXXX               E-mail    xxxxxxxxx                            Primary Insured          Gender                     NA                    Date of Birth    NA          Marital Status             NA              Dependent Insured          Name   xxxxxxx                   (mm/dd/yyyy)     xxxxxxx          Gender  xxxxxxx                                                Relation         Spouse          Current Country of Residence           Switzerland             Date of Purchase:                                         10/01/2012     Drug Name:   XXXXXXXXX
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Confused
Problem with my last post
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I couldn't get the post to recognize the spaces like I thought it would. I know that was painful to read. Let me try again.

Example:
------------------------------
(Name of 1st School) (*5-10 spaces in between*) (full URL of school website) (*line break*)

Address: (School Address) (*5-10 spaces in between*) County: (County) (*5-10 spaces in between*) Phone: (Phone #) (*line break*)

Grade Range: (Grade Range) (*5-10 spaces in between*) Enrollment: (Enrollment #) (*5-10 spaces in between*) District: (District) (*5-10 spaces in between*) Fax:(Fax) (*line break*)

Personnel: (Person's name Person's position) (There also may be additional people listed below or just one person listed with a line break for each personnel and position title) (*line break*)

(Name of 2nd School)

etc.

----------------------------------------------------- There is only a single line break between the last entry in the "Personnel" section and the name of the following school.

Update: the actual number of spaces between the personnel name and the personnel position is between 37-40. So it's not a consistent number of spaces.
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Confused
Auto-formatting dates and running spaces and preceding data issues
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Hi, this is an excellent tool. Thank you for developing it. I am having a problem with the auto-formatting features for dates in excel. My data in excel looks like this: (Name of 1st School) (full URL of school website) Address: (School Address) County: (County) Phone: (Phone #) Grade Range: (Grade Range) Enrollment: (Enrollment #) District: (District) Fax:(Fax) Personnel: (Person's name Person's position) (There also may be additional people listed below or just one person listed) (Name of 2nd School) ...etc When I extract the "Grade Range", Excel is formatting what should be "1-8" or "9-12" as January 8th or September 12th. When I try to reformat after conversion back to text, the number is like 45193. Do you have a solution to keep it as "1-8", "7-12", "9-12", etc? Also, I obviously have problems with there being spaces between everything, including extra spaces within the "Personnel" line. And there is nothing unique preceding the "Name of n-th School" field. They aren't even numbered. It basically just says "Happy Mountain Example School". I would really like to extract that "Name of n-th School" field, if possible. It also creates problems with the "Personnel" field. Because if I want to get all of the "Personnel" (because there may be more than one), I have to put the end text as "Address:" because it is the only next unique text. I could use "full URL of school website", but not every school has one and nothing precedes that field. Will it help that the "Name of the n-th School" field is always in bold? A solution to either of these issues would be much appreciated. Again, thank you for this great utility.
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Grateful
Wonderful tool
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Hello,

This really is "One of a kind" program, thanks for that to the developers.

I have managed to input the commands quite succesfully, but I have a problem with how the program overwrites the old data every time I run the extraction. Is that supposed to be happening? How it can be changed?
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Confused
Results overwritten
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Thanks, but I tried that and it didnt have any effect.

Either it still overwrites the old data or the code doesnt know how to "continue from where it left" as in know where the first datafree line is and continue from there. Copying the data automatically to another sheet after the extract would also work but I dont know how to do that either.
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Confused
Help needed
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Hello, I tried to comment out various parts myself but I didnt succeed on what I'm after. What parts I need to comment out for it to work so that it wont overwrite old data?
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Confused
Thanks!
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Hello, thanks!

This seems to be working! Highly appreciated! 
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Confused
Confused
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Hi, It isnt still working as I want it to, if I delete the pdf files it has already extracted it overwrites the old data again because it returns to write from the beginning. How it can be made to find the next free cell?
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Confused
Confused
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In my opinion that is what its not doing.

This excel VBA code or the pdftotext.exe doesnt know how to not overwrite cells that have data on it. It doesnt matter if the code to delete the data is commented out because every time the program simply starts from the beginning, it reads every PDF file from the beginning, that is intended, but at the same time it overwrites the old data because it was not programmed to resume writing from the first empty cell.

While running the extraction command it knows how to copy data of each pdf file to a new row, but after the extraction process is over it forgets where it left. Next time you run the extraction, it starts from the beginning of the sheet overwriting the old data. That is how it runs because it was intended that way.

I have tried to change the mrow variable VBA code so that it would find the first empty cell, but every time I have run errors on the following command line and that is where I drop off.

VBA Code:
Call Run_Replacements(CStr(Cells(mrow, (j + 3)).Address), CStr(arrTmp(j, 2)))
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Confused
Removing tabs and spaces
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This is a great tool if i can figure out how to do a couple of things.  Each month I have sales reports for every day the Bar was open.  These reports are PDF files.  Below is a excert from the txt file that was created.  

101 - System Tracking
 Food                            27              216.29        Emp Disc 50%                 0                0.00                                     0              0.00
 Liquor                         123              452.89        Manager Comp Open            0                0.00                                     0              0.00
 Beer                            59              178.81        Open Food Disc               0                0.00      Gift Cert Redeemed             0              0.00
 Daquiri                        131              690.99        Mgr Comp 100%                1              -93.08      Emp Charge                     0              0.00
 T-Shirt                          0                0.00        Mgr Comp 50%                 0                0.00      Total Other Payments                          0.00

I need the following in a spreadsheet.
Columns       Results
Food            216.29
Liquor          452.89
Beer            178.81
Daquiri        690.99
T-Shirt            0.00

Please let me know the best way to get these results.  THank you for your help and for creating a great tool. 
 Andy
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