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Brand new to Adobe... Need some guidance please

Forum Index > General Acrobat Topics > Brand new to Adobe... Need some guidance please
2009-12-30 20:09:46
robjgreer
Registered: Dec 30 2009
Posts: 2

If I have recently been scanning financial documents into PDF's, is it possible to convert this data into a different format like Excell etc... so that I can than import this information into a financial software program like Quicken rather than having to manually type in the information? (300+ pages of prior commission statements and expenses)

Any guidance or assistance would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for your patience with a new user.

My Product Information:
Acrobat Standard 9.2, Windows
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2009-12-31 07:07:41
#1
M2A
Registered: Dec 18 2009
Posts: 15
In Acrobat go in the "FILE" menu, choose "EXPORT" and then "export multiple files".

In the batch window add your files and then in the OUTPUT OPTIONS select "Tables in Excel Spreadsheet" as output format.

Does it help ?
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2009-12-31 14:04:14
#2
daka630
Expert
Registered: Mar 1 2007
Posts: 1420
Hi,
Scanning provides an image (typically TIFF or JPEG) that is being put into the PDF.
As such, there is no "content" in the sense of renderable characters.
Without this, there is nothing to export.

Something to try ~
Create some working copies of a PDF containing the scanned image.
Perform OCR. Try transferring the OCR content out.

Document > OCR Text Recognition > Recognize Text Using OCR
In the Recognize Text dialog, click the Edit button.
Look over the drop-down menu for "PDF Output Style".
You have three choices:
--| Searchable Image
--| Searchable Image (Exact)
--| ClearScan

For one trial, use the first or second. For a second trial use ClearScan.
From ClearScan you can cleanup "suspect" OCR output.

Try a transfer of the OCR output to Excel.
May work. If so, avoid "great expectations". Your moving OCR output which is a "best-estimate" sort of thing
and, for financial data (in lotsa "boxes") most consumer level OCR engines are a wee bit challenged.

A quick how-to.
Have a single page in view. Use Ctrl+A to confirm that there is some reasonable semblence of OCR output
that mimics what's in the image.
On the tool bar, select the Select Tool (icon is I-Beam/Arrow).
Place mouse cursor focus over center of one of the high lighted boxes of OCR output.
Cursor becomes a filled arrow head with a piece of paper. May have to hover a bit until icon gets rendered by your system.
Right click for context menu.
Select Copy As Table | Save As Table | Open Table in Spreadsheet.
Check out the result.

n.b., File > Export > Export Multiple Files...; selecting the PDFs containing only an image; selecting Export to: Tables in Excel Spreadsheet is not going to get you what you are looking for. Exporting an image to Excel would not , I suspect, bring satisfaction .
Even after application of OCR you may find that this method will not work. The routine is looking for table structure in the PDF content.
OCR does not provide that.

Be well...

Be well...

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