PDF to plain text, Some difficult pages were encountered Adobe Acrobat XI-CodePudding

The

Disappointingly clicking ok generates the text file blank.

The following script to loop through PDF files and convert them to text files using acrobat: It works fine for most PDFs except ones with figures like above.

Sub LoopThroughFiles() Dim StrFile As String Dim pdfPath As String StrFile = Dir("C:\temp\PDFs\") fileRoot = "C:\temp\PDFs\" If Right(fileRoot, 1) <> "\" Then fileRoot = fileRoot & "\" 'ensure terminating \ Do While Len(StrFile) > 0 Debug.Print StrFile pdfPath = fileRoot & StrFile Debug.Print pdfPath success = ConvertPdf2(pdfPath, fileRoot & StrFile & ".txt") StrFile = Dir On Error Resume Next Loop End Sub 'returns true if conversion was successful (based on whether `Open` succeeded or not) Function ConvertPdf2(pdfPath As String, textPath As String) As Boolean Dim AcroXApp As Acrobat.AcroApp Dim AcroXAVDoc As Acrobat.AcroAVDoc Dim AcroXPDDoc As Acrobat.AcroPDDoc Dim jsObj As Object, success As Boolean Set AcroXApp = CreateObject("AcroExch.App") Set AcroXAVDoc = CreateObject("AcroExch.AVDoc") success = AcroXAVDoc.Open(pdfPath, "Acrobat") '<<< returns false if fails If success Then Application.Wait (Now TimeValue("0:00:2")) 'Helps PC have some time to go through data, can cause PC to freeze without Set AcroXPDDoc = AcroXAVDoc.GetPDDoc Set jsObj = AcroXPDDoc.GetJSObject jsObj.SaveAs textPath, "com.adobe.acrobat.plain-text" AcroXAVDoc.Close False End If AcroXApp.Hide AcroXApp.Exit ConvertPdf2 = success 'report success/failure End Function

The error appears to be jsObj.SaveAs textPath, "com.adobe.acrobat.plain-text" If instead I use jsObj.SaveAs textPath, "com.adobe.acrobat.accesstext" the text file is generated but for my needs it is important the file generates is in the plain text format.

The reason for this can be seen below in a different PDF. These are the different types of text files generated:

Plain text (extends as sentences in the horizontal direction - this is required):

Access Text: (creates more of a body of text - this separated sentences by carriage return and is problematic)

I reckon this is a lost cause for these sorts of PDFs; disappointing, though, as many of the PDFs I need to convert are in this format. Appear to have been plagued with issues trying to solve this one.

Anyway just wondered if it may be possible to disable the popup message, and maybe this will allow the plain-text write to occur?

Alternatively can't think of much else.

CodePudding user response：

It looks like your Acrobat version 11 has issues since "Works for Me" but using older version Reader 9, however its textport as plain text, is goingt to be what you get from pdftotext e.g. left aligned single lines, unsure if a 10 Pro or 20## might be good enough, when did Adobe massage the natural pdf output to richer ?

Reader 9 export as plain text

Opening in other viewers works well enough to save as word or wordpad

Or edit the PDF before save as Docx or convert to text

CodePudding user response：

The best bet is likely just to accept accessible text and transform this data to something that resembles plain text using logical rules.