[R] Extract lines from pdf files

Jeff Reichman re|chm@nj @end|ng |rom @bcg|ob@|@net
Wed Nov 20 19:56:09 CET 2019


Eric

I will have to give that a try. Thanks.  
For a "it works" method I used ....

start_time <- Sys.time()

	insert code of interest

end_time <- Sys.time()
end_time - start_time

-----Original Message-----
From: R-help <r-help-bounces using r-project.org> On Behalf Of Eric Berger
Sent: Wednesday, November 20, 2019 9:58 AM
To: Jeff Newmiller <jdnewmil using dcn.davis.ca.us>
Cc: Thomas Subia <tgs77m using yahoo.com>; Thomas Subia via R-help
<r-help using r-project.org>
Subject: Re: [R] Extract lines from pdf files

Hi Thomas,
As Jeff wrote, your HTML email is difficult to read. This is a "plain text"
forum.
As for "pointers", here is one suggestion.
Since you write that you can do the necessary actions with a specific file,
try to write a function that carries out those actions for that same file.
Except when implementing the function, replace any specific data with the
value of an argument passed into the function.
e.g.
txt <- pdf_text("10619.pdf")
would be replaced by
txt <- pdf_text(pdfFile)

and your function would have pdfFile as an argument, as in

myfunc <- function( pdfFile )

Since you can accomplish the task for this file without a function, you
should be able to accomplish the task with a function.
Once you succeed to do that you can then try passing the function arguments
that refer to the other files you need to process.

HTH,
Eric


On Wed, Nov 20, 2019 at 1:09 AM Jeff Newmiller <jdnewmil using dcn.davis.ca.us>
wrote:
>
> Please don't spam the mailing list. Especially with HTML format messages.
See the Posting Guide.
>
> PDF is designed to present data graphically. It is literally possible to
place every character in the page in random order and still achieve this
visual readability while practically making it nearly impossible to read. I
have encountered many PDF files with the same text placed on the page
multiple times... again scrambling your option to read it digitally. Tools
like "pdftools" can sometimes work when the program that generated the file
does so in a simple and extraction-friendly way... but there are no
guarantees, and your description suggests that it is likely that you won't
be able to accomplish your goal with this file.
>
> On November 19, 2019 11:52:20 PM GMT+01:00, Thomas Subia via R-help
<r-help using r-project.org> wrote:
> >
> >Colleagues,
> >
> >
> >
> >I can extract specific data from lines in a pdf using:
> >
> >
> >
> >library(pdftools)
> >
> >pdf_text("10619.pdf")
> >
> >txt <- pdf_text(".pdf")
> >
> >write.table(txt,file="mydata.txt")
> >
> >con <- file('mydata.txt')
> >
> >open(con)
> >
> >serial <- read.table(con,skip=5,nrow=1) #Extract[3]flatness <- 
> >read.table(con,skip=11,nrow=1)# Extract [5]
> >
> >parallel1 <-read.table(con,skip=2,nrow=1)# Extract [5]
> >
> >parallel2 <-read.table(con,skip=4,nrow=1)# Extract [5]
> >
> >close(con)
> >
> >
> >
> ># note here that serial has 4 variables
> >
> ># flatness had 6 variables
> >
> ># parallel1 has 5 variables
> >
> ># parallel2 has 5 variables
> >
> >
> >
> ># this outputs the specific data I need
> >
> >serial[3]
> >
> >flatness[5]
> >
> >parallel1[5] # Note here that the txt format shows 0.0007not 
> >scientific, is there a way to format this to display the original data?
> >
> >parallel2[5] # Note here that the txt format shows 0.0006not 
> >scientific, , is there a way to format this to display the original 
> >data?
> >
> >
> >
> >I'd like to extend this code to all of the pdf files in adirectory 
> >and to generate a table of all the serial, flatness, parallel1 
> >andparallel2 data.
> >
> >I'm not having a lot of success trying to build thescript for this.
> >Some pointers would be appreciated.
> >All the best.
> >
> >Thomas Subia
> >
> >Statistician / Senior Quality Engineer
> >
> >
> >
> >       [[alternative HTML version deleted]]
> >
> >______________________________________________
> >R-help using r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see 
> >https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> >PLEASE do read the posting guide
> >http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> >and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
>
> --
> Sent from my phone. Please excuse my brevity.
>
> ______________________________________________
> R-help using r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see 
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> PLEASE do read the posting guide 
> http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.

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