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The conversion from PDF to spreadsheet is not always the smoothest process. The tools are getting better, but there may be strange row and column merges in the resulting spreadsheet that the user may have to cleanup. This is due to the nature of the content PDF document which can be rendered in many different ways
Always examine the resulting spreadsheet and make sure it looks usableto verify the contents are what they should be!.
In many cases takes just a few minutes to reformat to make the spreadsheet usable, which which is far easier and more reliable than cutting and pasting pdf fields into a spreadsheet by hand (a process which can also be fraught with peril since the order of that things appear in the pdf file are not always the order they get pasted...)
Manually Cutting and Pasting from PDF to Spreadsheets
When manually cutting and pasting pin Information from a PDF DataSheet into a spreadsheet, cadEnhance recommends using the free Foxit Reader PDF reader available
from: https://www.foxitsoftware.com/products/pdf-reader/ instead of the Adobe Acrobat reader.
The Foxit Reader provides more controls for selecting data fields, and does a much better job of maintaining the source data formatting in cut and paste operations. Acrobat tends to mangle the order and format of the data.
**In all cases, be sure to verify that the order of information that you selected is maintained when you paste it into the spreadsheet. Due to the nature of pdf file structure, the pasted data may come in out of order!
Able2Extract and ABBYY PDF to SpreadSheet converters
If your company is security conscious, or if you need more control over the PDF conversion process, you can use the Able2Extract tool from Investintech, or the ABBYY Fineline PDF Reader.
These tools let you run locally without uploading files to the cloud, and they are pretty inexpensive A lifetime fixed node license is normally available for ~$150.
They also provide much better fine-grained control over the conversion process.
Since many CadEnhance customers use this tool, if you order the license through CadEnhance, we can offer you a 25% discount off the normal price.
Helpful PDF to Spreadsheet Videos
| Title | Length | Video link | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| CadEnhance ScreenCast Video Channel | http://scast.cadenhance.com/pb_convert_pdf_to_ss_channel | ||
| PartBuilder:Using online2pdf.com to convert datasheet pdf to a spreadsheet | 02:17 | video | Here we use the free online2pdf.com website to convert a pdf datasheet table to a spreadsheet for use with PartBuilder |
| Manually Extracting Pin-Data from poorly formatted PDF (Analog Devices) | 10:42 | video | We show how Foxit Pdf Reader is a better choice than the Adobe Reader when cutting and pasting regions of text from a pdf to create a pinTable spreadsheet... We go over some tricks on how to best accomplish the task for poorly formatted PDFS like the ones from Analog Devices |
| Using Able2Extract | |||
Extracting a SIMPLE_BGA SpreadSheet with Able2Extract Auto Mode | 02:44 | video | We look at using Able2Extract to build a SIMPLE_BGA Spreadsheet for PartBuilder... This first installment shows the issues if you use the default Able2Extract settings |
| Able2Extract Custom Export | 03:03 | video | We use the Interactive Custom Export functions in Able2Extract to fix the spreadsheet to make a proper SIMPLE_BGA spreadsheet for PartBuilder |
| Using able2extract to convert a difficult pdf table Step1 | 02:51 | video | step1 converting difficult pdf table to spreadsheet |
| Using Able2extract to convert a difficult pdf table step2 | 12:44 | video | |
| Using Able2Extract Custom Mode to improve DRAM SpreadSheet conversion | 03:47 | video | Using the Custom mode in Able2Extract to improve SpreadSheet, needing less manual intervention |
| PartBuilder ISL5416 From DataSheet- Step1a Extracting SpreadSheet from PDF with Able2Extract | 05:46 | video | use Able2Extract to convert ball map in pdf to spreadsheet table |
| Using ABBYY Fineline PDF Reader | |||
Extracting TQFP Pin Data from PDF with ABBYY Fineline PDF reader | 05:23 | video | here we use the FineReader PDF 15.0 from ABBYY to convert the Analog Devices LTC7880 TQFP Pin Drawing Into a spreadsheet |