How to read from pdf to SAS

[SASUserRocks]

Dear Friends

Is it possible to read contents from signed scanned pdf copy to SAS proc sql. Please help

[Patrick]

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.

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.

[RW9]

PDF is a proprietary binary file.  SAS cannot read much else other than the plain binary code which unless you understand and can parse it, is of no use.  PDF is not a data format, its a render destination.  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.  I would highly recommend either returning to source data which is the preferred method, or worst case, type things in manually.  Ultimately PDF is a dreadful format, as far from open as possible, so avoid it as much as possible.

[SASUserRocks]

Thanks for the feedback provided. Lets say i can convert pdf to text. Here how can bring check box tick in txt file.

[RW9]

Exactly.  How can you bring in things which aren't text.  Checkbox could be a PDF object, or a picture.  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: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/55777812/python-pdf-how-to-read-from-form-elements-like-checkbox), but its going to take a fair bit of effort.  Go back to source data is really the best option.