Can I borrow someones PDF editor please?

[MonKENy]

Can someone pull some text off of a PDF for me? I have a 10 page doc I need the text from and cant find anything for free.

Its not a lot of text.

Thanks

 

[TheRyuu]

Chrome comes with a built in pdf reader and so does Firefox (pdf.js). Windows 8 also comes with one built in (as a modern app).

Are none of these choices an option for you?

 

[MonKENy]

No, I need to extract the text. Its a scan of a scan of a scan etc and its starting to look beat up. I want to extract the text into a word or google doc to be able to print a fresh sheet w/out having to retype it all.

 

[Berliner]

Then it is not text but an image.

 

[TheRyuu]

No, I need to extract the text. Its a scan of a scan of a scan etc and its starting to look beat up. I want to extract the text into a word or google doc to be able to print a fresh sheet w/out having to retype it all.

Then how are we supposed to be able to do it when you can't?

 

[MonKENy]

Im hoping someone has a PDF editor with the features. A lot of them have the features if you buy the "advanced" version. I dont think its cost effective to spend $200 to extract a 10 page doc. We are a small non profit company we dont have the resources. I would also have to get it installed on our server so I cant do it timely either.

 

[VirtualLarry]

That sounds like potentially-difficult OCR work, not simply extracting text from a PDF.

 

[MonKENy]

I was hoping it would be something simple, Its not a very detailed document. Its like survey questions mostly so basic one line sentences lots of space in between etc. Figured I would ask but It doesnt sound like anyone can help.

Oh well. Thanks anyway folks! Appreciate the feedback.

 

[MustISO]

I used something a while back to do just this. It was a scan of a legal document and the product did a good job, got about 95% of the document correct. I had to do some formatting afterward but it did work.

I believe I used the trial version of Nitro's product to do it:
https://www.pdftoword.com/

 

[Anteaus]

If it was scanned in the first place then you need more than a pdf editor. You need something that can use pattern recognition to detect the text. In my experience text can only be easily extracted if it started out in that form, say a MS Word document, etc. Just retype it...10 pages can't take more than 30-60 min unless you have zero typing skills. As you said, it isn't much text.

A good thing is that you'll have it in a nice format and can stop relying on old scans.

Good luck.

 

[MonKENy]

I used something a while back to do just this. It was a scan of a legal document and the product did a good job, got about 95% of the document correct. I had to do some formatting afterward but it did work.

I believe I used the trial version of Nitro's product to do it:
https://www.pdftoword.com/

Trying that now, Thanks

If it was scanned in the first place then you need more than a pdf editor. You need something that can use pattern recognition to detect the text. In my experience text can only be easily extracted if it started out in that form, say a MS Word document, etc. Just retype it...10 pages can't take more than 30-60 min unless you have zero typing skills. As you said, it isn't much text.

A good thing is that you'll have it in a nice format and can stop relying on old scans.

Good luck.

Thanks. Yeah Ill just do that if MustISO's link doesnt work.

 

[gsaldivar]

Try a free online OCR service:

https://www.google.com/search?q=online+ocr

Or, you can try Capture 2 Text which is a free Windows OCR that will try to convert anything you can display on your monitor:

http://capture2text.sourceforge.net/

 

[IronWing]

If it was scanned in the first place then you need more than a pdf editor. You need something that can use pattern recognition to detect the text. In my experience text can only be easily extracted if it started out in that form, say a MS Word document, etc. Just retype it...10 pages can't take more than 30-60 min unless you have zero typing skills. As you said, it isn't much text.

A good thing is that you'll have it in a nice format and can stop relying on old scans.

Good luck.

The full version of Acrobat has OCR built-in. It works acceptably well for most scanned text. I wouldn't rely on it for tables of numbers.

 

[readymix]

something like this? if so, upload to the onedrive.