Importing PDFs

[John Glassco]

We have a system for importing files sent to us from an outside source. The
files are sent via e-mail which are then manually saved into a folder. Then
we have a program that loads the files (plain text or Excel) from that folder
into a table using DoCmd.TransferText and a stored import spec.

One of our outside sources has started sending PDFs instead of plain text.
I'm wondering if there's a way to import the text in the PDF file into a
table in a manner similar to TransferText. Is this even possible? And if
so, what are some possible solutions?

 

[Klatuu]

No, PDF files are not text. They are an image.
A full install of Adobe may have a utility to convert a PDF to text or there
may be a third party utility that will do that; however, I am not aware of
any. Try googling for it.

 

[John Glassco]

Thanks for the quick response.

Well, the PDFs that I'm dealing with are stored as text and can be edited
directly from Acrobat. The text can also be highlighted and copy+pasted from
Adobe Reader 8. I thought since they were stored in such a way that there
might be a way to import them straight across.

And I've been scouring Google with little luck, which is why I decided to
ask here. I'll have to look into the conversion aspect, though. I'd like to
keep as much of this automated as possible, but from what I've read so far,
it may not be an option.