Convert pdf to csv or xls

[beary]

Does anyone know of a php script to convert a pdf document to csv or xls? The pdf is a table of data and the data needs to stay in its columns. I can get the data to txt but there are variable numbers of spaces between fields in each record. If not a script, a way to get the job done or some ideas?

Thanks

[hsriat]

Does anyone know of a php script to convert a pdf document to csv or xls? The pdf is a table of data and the data needs to stay in its columns. I can get the data to txt but there are variable numbers of spaces between fields in each record. If not a script, a way to get the job done or some ideas?

Thanks

pdf can't be converted to any of these formats. Actually it can't be converted accurately to any format.

[Atli]

How about using explode and preg_split on that text output to split them into useful data?

Assuming you get every row in a new line, you could start by exploding them by the \n newline char and then splitting every line into fields using regex. Something like "/\s+/" should work.

[hsriat]

How about using explode and preg_split on that text output to split them into useful data?

Assuming you get every row in a new line, you could start by exploding them by the \n newline char and then splitting every line into fields using regex. Something like "/\s+/" should work.

Do you think that would work on pdf?

[Atli]

Do you think that would work on pdf?

Probably not no, but the OP said he could get the data in a text file.
Unless I'm misunderstanding something :P

[beary]

Probably not no, but the OP said he could get the data in a text file.
Unless I'm misunderstanding something :P

No Atli, you're not misunderstanding. I can get the data into a text file. Well at least into a Word file. The problem is it's not in columns. It looks like this:

A bad case of stripes [some spaces] Shannon, David 1-2
A bad spell for the worst witch [some spaces] Murphy, Jill 3-4
A bad week for the three bears [some spaces] Bradman, Tony 1-2

Between the 3 "columns" is a number of spaces. Problem is the number of spaces is variable, and it depends on the length of the title of the book, and then in the 2nd set of spaces, the length of the author. So I can't just use convert text to table. (I tried to use spaces and to treat consecutive spaces as one space, but then I'm going to get lots of columns, depending on the numbe of words in the title.

So, if there was some way to convert this list (in a word doc) to a table with 3 columns (title, author, grade) I'd be in the clear.

I hope this doesn't cloud the issue. Do I have any hope of doing this?

[The reason I want all this done is because I need to use php to write a script to compare one set of books with another set of books. But I need the book info in an array first. I can get it into an array once the data is safely in excel...]

[hsriat]

You can try to use regular expression to separate the data units.

Like this..[php]<?php
$text_content = "A bad case of stripes Shannon, David 1-2
A bad spell for the worst witch Murphy, Jill 3-4
A bad week for the three bears Bradman, Tony 1-2";

$rows = explode("\n", $text_content);
$books = array("name"=>array(), "author"=>array(), "grade"=>array());
foreach ($rows as $row)
{
$row = preg_replace('/\s\s+/', '#|#', $row);
array_push($books["name"], strtok($row, '#|#'));
$row = strtok('#|#');
$i = preg_match('/^[\w]+,[\s][\w]+/', $row, $author);
if (count($author)==0)
$i = preg_match('/^[\w]+[\s]/', $row, $author);
array_push($books["author"], $author[0]);
array_push($books["grade"], trim(str_replace($author[0], "", $row)));
}
unset($rows);

echo "<pre>";
print_r($books);
echo "</pre>";

?>[/php]

[hsriat]

Output of above is..

Array
(
    [name] => Array
        (
            [0] => A bad case of stripes
            [1] => A bad spell for the worst witch
            [2] => A bad week for the three bears
        )
 
    [author] => Array
        (
            [0] => Shannon, David
            [1] => Murphy, Jill
            [2] => Bradman, Tony
        )
 
    [grade] => Array
        (
            [0] => 1-2
            [1] => 3-4
            [2] => 1-2
        )
 
)

[beary]

THANKYOU hsriat!!!!! You have no idea how much this has helped. I had no idea php could do this so simply. I don't understand preg_match etc, but I better look into it as it seems pretty powerful. I made a small mod to the code so it now looks like...

      $rows = explode("\n", $text_content);
      $books = array("name"=>array(), "author"=>array(), "grade"=>array());
      foreach ($rows as $row)
      {
            array_push($books["grade"],substr($row,-4));
    $row=str_replace('substr($row,-4)','',$row);
          $row = preg_replace('/\s\s+/', '#|#', $row);
          array_push($books["name"], strtok($row, '#|#'));
    $row=str_replace("strtok($row, '#|#')","",$row);
          $row = strtok('#|#');
          array_push($books["author"], $row);
      }
     unset($rows);
 

It produces exactly what I needed: arrays with the matching book titles, authors and grades.

Again, thanks heaps for posting your solution. Very very much appreciated!

[hsriat]

This is better, as you won't need to match the author's name. But I could not guess exact form of grading, so gave you that solution.

But one change you can do, don't do subsrt and strtok twice. Do it once and save it as a variable. Use the variable next time. Would be a little bit faster.

You could also do preg_split'ing instead of preg_replace'ing and then strtok'ing.

Too glad to know it really helped you...

Regards,
Harpreet

[hsriat]

Again, thanks heaps for posting your solution. Very very much appreciated!

heaps ... what does that mean?...

I thought heap means pile or something like that...

must be a new slang... never heard that....

[beary]

heaps ... what does that mean?...

I thought heap means pile or something like that...

must be a new slang... never heard that....

Well in land down under it means lots and lots and lots!So like I said: Thanks heaps!