How to read table from pdf

I have a pdf, it text within a table

I am able to read the text into a varible, but then i get a string with all the text in it.

i make use of extractFileText to read it into a string.

How can i then turn this text into a table?

I've pasted a sample of the string i read in, it has no table column names, its just actual data

So what i want to do is ignore the first to rows below and from there you see three records (lines)

Each line needs to be a row in the table, and the delimeter between each column value is the three arrows (which i think is a newline)

Weekly Gazettes   1 ↵↵↵
NEW SOUTH WALES WEEKLY ISSUE ↵ ↵↵↵
3 RIVERS ESTATE, 140 001 976 ↵↵↵374 KALKITE RD KALKITE NSW 2627 ↵↵↵Creditor: CONSULT SURVEY GRA PTY LTD ↵↵↵DEFAULT JUDGEMENT (NSW) 02/11/2020 ↵↵↵00262008/20/163, $113,237.00 ↵↵↵
ABCD PROJECTS, 618 354 331 ↵↵↵8 17 GARTMORE AVE BANKSTOWN NSW 2200 ↵↵↵Creditor: WORKERS COMPENSATION NOMINAL I ↵↵↵DEFAULT JUDGEMENT (NSW) 03/11/2020 ↵↵↵00063818/20/METN, $2,553.00 ↵↵↵
ABOUT CONCRETE CONSTRUCTIONS, 156 080 241 ↵↵↵46 NEW HORIZON AVE BAHRS SCRUB QLD 4207 ↵↵↵Creditor: HUSQVARNA AUSTRALIA PTY LTD ↵↵↵DEFAULT JUDGEMENT (NSW) 03/11/2020 ↵↵↵00223837/20/3, $1,298.00 ↵↵↵
AC SHOPFITTING SPECIALIST, 635 292 376 ↵↵↵12 CURTIN ST CABRAMATTA NSW 2166 ↵↵↵Creditor: WORKERS COMPENSATION NOMINAL I ↵↵↵DEFAULT JUDGEMENT (NSW) 06/11/2020 ↵↵↵00266709/20/METN, $5,191.00 ↵↵↵
ACN 607735080, 607 735 080 ↵↵↵14 BARNES ST WOOLGOOLGA NSW 2456 ↵↵↵Creditor: BIDFOOD AUSTRALIA LTD ↵↵↵DEFAULT JUDGEMENT (NSW) 02/11/2020 ↵↵↵00271889/20/METN, $9,891.00 ↵↵↵

[dpb]

Be much easier for somebody to mess with if you attached a .mat file with the variable as you've read it. Plus would eliminate what may have been introduced by the translation to text in the edit box...

[Rizwan Khan]

@dpb - Please find attcahed the .mlx file and .pdf

Hopeful you can provide some feedback on how to read this info into a table into matlab

[dpb]

You didn't attach what asked for -- the array your script returns as the variable str as a .mat file so can see what you really get.

I don't have the Text Analytics Toolbox so can't run your code to produce the data you're trying to do something with.

I don't trust the pasted text to be accurate-enough representation of the actual variable content to make it worth the effort to fool with.

[Rizwan Khan]

Thanks for your help, i guess this remains an open issue, and unsure how to resolve.

[Stephen23]

"i guess this remains an open issue, and unsure how to resolve."

You could upload a .mat file of the imported data, just as dpb requested here.

[Rizwan Khan]

Dear Sir,

if we see my text i pasted from teh variable.

Then, each of those arrows represents a new variable.

How can i loop through them using that arrow (left arrow) as a delimeter?

The record completed after the currency.

So the problem no longer is how i read pdf, i am doing that, the problem now is, how do i loop through that str which has all the pdf content?

Answer 1

[Mathieu NOE]

hello

I don't know where the function extractFileText comes from

So I'd did it my way : converted the pdf in excel file (on internet) and then was very easy:

T = readtable('weekly-gazettes-12-11-20-converti.xlsx');
C = table2cell(T)
C =

  133×2 cell array

    {'ABCD PROJECTS, 618 …'}    {'DEFAULT JUDGEMENT (…'}
    {'ABOUT CONCRETE CONS…'}    {'DEFAULT JUDGEMENT (…'}
    {'AC SHOPFITTING SPEC…'}    {'DEFAULT JUDGEMENT (…'}
    {'ACN 607735080, 607 …'}    {'DEFAULT JUDGEMENT (…'}
    {'ACP ACCOUNTANTS & C…'}    {'DEFAULT JUDGEMENT (…'}
    
    etc......

[Stephen23]

"I don't know where the function extractFileText comes from"

here: https://www.mathworks.com/help/textanalytics/ref/extractfiletext.html

[Mathieu NOE]

Stephen

tx for the info

[Rizwan Khan]

Dear Sir,

The function extractFileText is a matlab function.

Converting it to a excel on the internet is not really an option, unless its an API, because i may have hundreds of thesse files i need to put into a matlab table.

Is there a way to do this completely through matlab?

[Rizwan Khan]

Dear Sir,

Which online service did you use to convert to excel, maybe they have an API?

[Mathieu NOE]

hello

just googled API pdf to excel and got answers like :

Tabex Pdf to Excel Api is a powerful tool for data extraction and data capture from pdf to one of the Excel formats. The API allow to identify tabular structures within pdf documents, being them scanned or editable, and export these tabular structure to Excel. The API available output Excel formats are XLS and XLSX.

PDF to Excel API | PDFExtractorOnline

pdfextractoronline.com/pdf-to-excel-api/

[Rizwan Khan]

Dear Sir,

After you get it into the format you listed above, how would i then separeate our the data within each field?

As an example each cell has more than one field within it, so how do i now separate that ?

{'ABCD PROJECTS, 618 …'}

[Mathieu NOE]

hello

use regexp to extract / split the content of each cell

see :

How do you separate the contents of one cell into separate columns? - MATLAB Answers - MATLAB Central (mathworks.com)

[Rizwan Khan]

Thanks Mathieu,

Why do i need to use regular expressions, if i have a common delimeter between each variable?

Can i somehow just use the delimeter?

[dpb]

Sure. See split