Best way to convert tables from PDF doc to excel

#1

Hi everyone, this is not related to web development directly, but it is step 1 in what is going to be a web-based project.

I need to collect data from various reports that have been published by government agencies around the world. This is one example: http://www.sbp.org.pk/publications/acd/2011/BranchlessBanking-Oct-Dec-2011.pdf

If you scroll to page 6, you can see a table. That table is repeated on each PDF for each quarter but sometimes with some changes.

I need a quick, effective way to convert any table I find in any of these PDFs into an excel table. I understand that I will have to do some clean up and that’s OK. I would just really like to avoid as much of the tedium related to this type of data collection as possible.

Open to any ideas! (Is Mechanical Turk worth it…?)

Thank you in advance.

#2

The first thing to do is make sure the content of the pdf is text and not an image scan. I opened it in preview on the mac and it is text. It used to be that google docs and sheets could open html and xml but couldn’t find the command now and couldn’t copy the page across. Tried converting to a war file then copy paste but maybe I did something wrong 'cause it put everything in column A but is properly broken up into cells at least.

Next I found this. Perhaps you could try it?
https://tabula.technology/

#3

@tlc35us - Wow - I’ve only used it on one document so far - but this tool is AMAZING. I might even donate to them. They (and you!) just saved me hours! I knew someone from FCC would have the answer!

#4