I am trying to extract tables from pdf files with vba and export them to excel. If everything works out the way it should, it should go all automatic. The problem is that the table are not standardized.
This is what I have so far.
- VBA (Excel) runs XPDF, and converts all .pdf files found in current folder to a text file.
- VBA (Excel) reads through each text file line by line.
And the code:
With New Scripting.FileSystemObject
With .OpenTextFile(strFileName, 1, False, 0)
If Not .AtEndOfStream Then .SkipLine
Do Until .AtEndOfStream
//do something
Loop
End With
End With
This all works great. But now I am getting to the issue of extracting the tables from the text files.
What I am trying to do is VBA to find a string e.g. "Year's Income", and then output the data, after it, into columns. (Until the table ends.)
The first part is not very difficult (find a certain string), but how would I go about the second part. The text file will look like this Pastebin. The problem is that the text is not standardized. Thus for example some tables have 3-year columns (2010 2011 2012) and some only two (or 1), some tables have more spaces between the columnn, and some do not include certain rows (such as Capital Asset, net).
I was thinking about doing something like this but not sure how to go about it in VBA.
- Find user defined string. eg. "Table 1: Years' Return."
-
a. Next line find years; if there are two we will need three columns in output (titles +, 2x year), if there are three we will need four (titles +, 3x year).. etc
b. Create title column + column for each year. - When reaching end of line, go to next line
-
a. Read text -> output to column 1.
b. Recognize spaces (Are spaces > 3?) as start of column 2. Read numbers -> output to column 2.
c. (if column = 3) Recognize spaces as start of column 3. Read numbers -> output to column 3.
d. (if column = 4) Recognize spaces as start of column 4. Read numbers -> output to column 4. - Each line, loop 4.
- Next line does not include any numbers – End table. (probably the easiet just a user defined number, after 15 characters no number? end table)
I based my first version on Pdf to excel, but reading online people do not recommend OpenFile
but rather FileSystemObject
(even though it seems to be a lot slower).
Any pointers to get me started, mainly on step 2?
Best Answer
You have a number of ways to dissect a text file and depending on how complex it is might cause you to lean one way or another. I started this and it got a bit out of hand... enjoy.
Based on the sample you've provided and the additional comments, I noted the following. Some of these may work well for simple files but can get unwieldy with bigger more complex files. Furthermore, there may be slightly more efficient methods or tricks to what I have used here but this will definitely get you going an achieve the desired outcome. Hopefully this makes sense in conjunction with the code provided:
InStr
on the current line to determine you are in a Table by looking for the text 'Table' and then once you know you are in the 'Table' section of the file start looking for the 'Assets' section etcSplit
function along with a loop will do the job.The following code will extract the Assets details from the text file, you can mod it to extract other sections. It should handle multiple rows. Hopefully I've commented it sufficient. Have a look and I'll edit if needs to help out further.