https://communities.sas.com/t5/SAS-Programming/How-to-read-from-pdf-to-SAS/m-p/859163#M339472 <P>Exactly.&nbsp; How can you bring in things which aren't text.&nbsp; Checkbox could be a PDF object, or a picture.&nbsp; End of the day, you could learn javascript in PDF and export it, or possibly find a third party library to get it (perhaps at a quick search: <A href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/55777812/python-pdf-how-to-read-from-form-elements-like-checkbox" target="_blank">https://stackoverflow.com/questions/55777812/python-pdf-how-to-read-from-form-elements-like-checkbox</A>), but its going to take a fair bit of effort.&nbsp; Go back to source data is really the best option.</P> Thu, 16 Feb 2023 11:17:54 GMT RW9 2023-02-16T11:17:54Z https://communities.sas.com/t5/SAS-Programming/How-to-read-from-pdf-to-SAS/m-p/859116#M339454 <P>Dear Friends</P><P>&nbsp;</P><P>Is it possible to read contents from signed scanned pdf copy to SAS proc sql. Please help</P> Thu, 16 Feb 2023 05:40:53 GMT https://communities.sas.com/t5/SAS-Programming/How-to-read-from-pdf-to-SAS/m-p/859116#M339454 SASUserRocks 2023-02-16T05:40:53Z https://communities.sas.com/t5/SAS-Programming/How-to-read-from-pdf-to-SAS/m-p/859125#M339458 <P>You need first to convert your PDF image to text. You then can parse this text using a SAS data step to extract what you need and store it in a SAS table. You need a table to use SQL.</P> <P>&nbsp;</P> <P>Tika is opensource software that can do such conversion to text. I believe SAS uses Tika (or at least used to) for this as part of Text Analytics.</P> Thu, 16 Feb 2023 07:57:06 GMT https://communities.sas.com/t5/SAS-Programming/How-to-read-from-pdf-to-SAS/m-p/859125#M339458 Patrick 2023-02-16T07:57:06Z https://communities.sas.com/t5/SAS-Programming/How-to-read-from-pdf-to-SAS/m-p/859138#M339464 <P>PDF is a proprietary binary file.&nbsp; SAS cannot read much else other than the plain binary code which unless you understand and can parse it, is of no use.&nbsp; PDF is not a data format, its a render destination.&nbsp; Whilst there are certain packages in python/R and other languages languages to do certain things, even if you do manage to get anything useful out of it would require full QC and probably a lot of work/processing.&nbsp; I would highly recommend either returning to source data which is the preferred method, or worst case, type things in manually.&nbsp; Ultimately PDF is a dreadful format, as far from open as possible, so avoid it as much as possible.</P> Thu, 16 Feb 2023 08:48:52 GMT https://communities.sas.com/t5/SAS-Programming/How-to-read-from-pdf-to-SAS/m-p/859138#M339464 RW9 2023-02-16T08:48:52Z https://communities.sas.com/t5/SAS-Programming/How-to-read-from-pdf-to-SAS/m-p/859147#M339467 <P>Thanks for the feedback provided. Lets say i can convert pdf to text. Here how can bring check box tick in txt file.</P> Thu, 16 Feb 2023 10:14:09 GMT https://communities.sas.com/t5/SAS-Programming/How-to-read-from-pdf-to-SAS/m-p/859147#M339467 SASUserRocks 2023-02-16T10:14:09Z https://communities.sas.com/t5/SAS-Programming/How-to-read-from-pdf-to-SAS/m-p/859163#M339472 <P>Exactly.&nbsp; How can you bring in things which aren't text.&nbsp; Checkbox could be a PDF object, or a picture.&nbsp; End of the day, you could learn javascript in PDF and export it, or possibly find a third party library to get it (perhaps at a quick search: <A href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/55777812/python-pdf-how-to-read-from-form-elements-like-checkbox" target="_blank">https://stackoverflow.com/questions/55777812/python-pdf-how-to-read-from-form-elements-like-checkbox</A>), but its going to take a fair bit of effort.&nbsp; Go back to source data is really the best option.</P> Thu, 16 Feb 2023 11:17:54 GMT https://communities.sas.com/t5/SAS-Programming/How-to-read-from-pdf-to-SAS/m-p/859163#M339472 RW9 2023-02-16T11:17:54Z