Convert a table in a pdf to a MATLAB cell structure

Question

Charles D'Onofrio 2021-1-29

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回答： Suraj 2023-3-29

I have a pdf file that contains an Nx9 table of data that I need to turn into a matlab cell structure of an excel file. Some of the (row,column) entries are blank.

So far, I have tried reading the pdf using:

txt = extractFileText('filename.pdf');

This produces a 1x1 string file with multiple spaces breaking up rows in a seemingly random order. The (row,column) combinations do not appear in a logical position in txt. Is there another command that can read a PDF table?

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dpb 2021-1-30

Which is, it seems, what the scraping utilities do...get the boundaries of the table as rendered and then suck that area up.

Sim 2023-3-12

在 MATLAB Online 中打开

I have the same problem @Charles D'Onofrio @dpb @Stephen23...

The following function is not really helpful when a PDFs contains tables with blank cells:

txt = extractFileText('filename.pdf');

Has a new tool been created in the meantime, i.e. between January 2021 and today, middle of March 2023 ?

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Answer 1

the cyclist 2023-3-12

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I can strongly recommend using Tabula to first extract the table from the PDF file. Then use a MATLAB function (e.g. readtable) to bring the Tabula output into MATLAB.

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Sim 2023-3-12

编辑：Sim 2023-3-13

Thanks a lot @the cyclist! Do you know if Tabula is safe in terms of privacy and confidentiality?

the cyclist 2023-3-13

I've haven't used it for data that I would have privacy concerns about, but I think there are strong reasons to believe it is safe:

It's open-source, so you can see all the code on github
It doesn't seem to send your data anywhere else. Although it might seem like it is sending your data to a web site, it looks to me like it only opens a local browser window.
It was first built by journalists, who tend to care about privacy (at least of their own data!)

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