Problems associated with the pdf data extraction
The PDF or portable documents format is the most commonly used format to view, store, share and print the data between businesses, organizations, and institutions. The PDF format was created to store and exchange information without changing any of its constituents.
That’s why, extracting, parsing, or scraping some amount of data from a pdf file can be quite a daunting task. For example, you must have struggled a lot while converting your pdf financial reports to excel, or extracting tables or pages from pdf documents. The challenges a person has to go through while doing these tasks are as follows
- You cannot just copy-paste the required data from a pdf file just as you can do with other file formats like XLS, CSV, or DOC. Although the option for copying the data is provided in pdf documents, it indirectly means the loss of original format and order of your data presentation.
- While handling data extraction from pdf in bulk, could lead to delays, cost overruns, and errors which, in turn, could seriously influence your business objectives.
Ways of extracting data from a pdf file?
So, is there any way by which you can extract some pages of interest from a huge pdf file? Fortunately, yes! In this article, we will discuss the four easiest ways of doing so. All these methods are written below in the enhancing order of their accuracy and efficiency.
- Copy-paste
- Hire someone to re-enter the data manually
- Online pdf converters
- Pdf extraction tools
Copy-paste
This copy-paste approach is one of the most feasible options, especially when you are dealing with a small number of documents. In this way, the steps you have to follow for pdf data extraction areas are as follows
- Open your pdf files one by one
- Select the specific portion of text or information from particular pages
- Copy that selected data
- Open a DOC, CSV, or XLS, file and paste the copied information there.
As stated before, this straightforward approach of extracting data may result in erroneous or prone-to-errors information. Even after copying-pasting the data of interest, you may have to spend a significant amount of effort and time to present and reorganize your extracted information in a meaningful and consistent way.
Hire someone to re-enter the data manually
Undergoing manual page extraction from a vast stock of pdf documents could become prohibitively expensive and unsustainable; if you are thinking about hiring a complete in-house staff for this job. Thus, the best, fastest, and cheapest alternative is to hire someone for this manual data extraction job.
You can move towards freelancing platforms and other white Label companies since they possess an army of professional typists. Most of these data entry experts are based in middle-income regions of the world like Southeast Asia, South Asia, Africa, etc.
Those professional typists follow the same method of copy-paste extraction but they will also be responsible for reorganizing the order and information. Plus, you’ll cut the huge cost with this approach and also get your data of interest in less time. Still, serious concerns like data security and quality control are there.
Online pdf converters
This option of online pdf converters is best for all those individuals who are concerned about data security and data quality. These tools manage in-house data extraction while being efficient and fast. You can find these converters as web-based solutions, mobile apps, and software.
While using online converters, you can convert a portable file into excel or word document. Thus, you can extract the tables from the document in a neat and presentable way. However, most of these converters are unable to handle multiple portable files at a time for extraction purposes. Meanwhile, you need to repeat the same extraction process again and again and again, for each file, one at a time!
Pdf extraction tools
Your document may have tables, figures, and images, along with plain text, and most of the online converters don’t process these elements. Online converters are usually formed to convert the text into an editable format which means, you still cannot edit or extract tables or figures from it.
Fortunately, specialized pdf extraction tools are there by which you can select the tables, images, or any other data of interest and then extract this information or pages to a separate file. Similarly, you can remove data and pages from your pdf file by using these extraction tools to get reasonably efficient outcomes. All these features make it the best and most preferred way of extracting and removing pages from a pdf file.