Need to extract data from pdf file

[marcelo_higasi]

Hello,

I need to extract data from PDF documents. Is there a way to do it using some SAS procedure or SAS coding.

I saw a case where R was required. Unfortunately this is not an option for me my company would not allow use of this software.

I saw a module called SAS® Text Miner 14.2. It seems to handle PDF but I am not sure if it requires a separate license for it.

Does anyone know?

Thank you,

Marcelo

[RW9]

Yes, text miner will be a licensed product, contact SAS for pricing.

Why is R not an option?  Its free, and if it does the job use it.

In normal SAS, no, there is no simple way of reading a PDF.  Extracting data from PDFs is a very complex and tricky process, and highly recommend to not go down that route.  Return to the source data, or if that is not possible, requisition some data entry.

[marcelo_higasi]

Thank you for the quick response.

R is not available at my company. I will need an alternative solution.

Kind regards

[RW9]

Put it on a pen drive, it can be portable:

https://sourceforge.net/projects/rportable/

[Reeza]

My work has all USB connections blocked. 😞 

[RW9]

IT are not your enemy, there will be a way of getting the required software, just ask them.  Much the same as you would need to get Adobe, or Text Miner or something else.  

[marcelo_higasi]

Thank you for your help. In may case getting something out of the "official list" is discouraging. In any case will see what can be done. Kind regards

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@RW9 wrote:

IT are not your enemy, there will be a way of getting the required software, just ask them.  Much the same as you would need to get Adobe, or Text Miner or something else.  

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[RW9]

Ahh, then that is easy.  Your response would be:

PDF is not a datasource, it is next to impossible to extract anything from it.  Therefore there are three options:

1) Go back to source and get appropriate data

2) Assign/hire someone to data entry all the data from the pdf

3) Aquire tools to do such a task

Its up to your company which they choose, but saying none of those is possible, makes your end impossible.

[marcelo_higasi]

My work has all USB connections blocked too! 😞

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@RW9 wrote:

Put it on a pen drive, it can be portable:

https://sourceforge.net/projects/rportable/

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[surajmetha55]

You need not, need to Install R in your PC. You can directly use it on cloud platform. See the following link, might be helpfull. 

link: https://rstudio.cloud/

[Reeza]

Adobe Professional has the capability to transfer the text/data out and that's the easiest and most accurate method I've found. Besides using Nvivo or a text mining tool. 

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@marcelo_higasi wrote:

Hello,

I need to extract data from PDF documents. Is there a way to do it using some SAS procedure or SAS coding.

I saw a case where R was required. Unfortunately this is not an option for me my company would not allow use of this software.

I saw a module called SAS® Text Miner 14.2. It seems to handle PDF but I am not sure if it requires a separate license for it.

Does anyone know?

Thank you,

Marcelo

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[marcelo_higasi]

Using PDF professional seems like a possible solution. Thank you!

[SundareshS]

Hi Marcelo,

As far as I am aware, the pdf conversion in Text miner is based on Apache Tika (https://tika.apache.org/) . I would consider these as a set of (Java based) programs which help in extracting data from a number of different document formats - pdfs, ppts, doc files etc.
You do not need to have Text Miner specifically to access Tika - if you explore your licences and happen to notice "Document Conversion Server" among your registered products - you may still be able to call the Tika program from the location / port where document conversion server is running.
In any case, you always have an option of installing and calling Tika from the command line interface. (It is a pretty lightweight utility)

[CraigDeVault]

Besides PDF files, there are several types of files that SAS can read in.  You can see a full list at the following URL:

   http://go.documentation.sas.com/?docsetId=tmref&docsetTarget=n1f1hnf1pk8w3in1i2h4v94rty2m.htm&docset...