How to Extract Data from PDF | 6 Ways

Whether analyzing market trends from research reports, digitizing historical records for archival purposes, or processing invoices for financial reconciliation, extracting data from PDFs is essential. However, if you are given an invoice PDF file that you cannot change or copy but need to extract data from, what can you do to extract data from PDFs? Here are the six feasible ways for two cases.

• For unprotected PDFs, you can manually copy and paste the target content from your PDF or extract data from PDF with ChatGPT.
• For DRM-protected PDFs, you'd better convert PDF to Word or seek help from EaseUS ChatPDF, Adobe PDF Abstract API, or other PDF-to-Text Converters like PDFCreator Online. Based on our assessment, EaseUS ChatPDF might be your top choice from different perspectives.🔥

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#1. Copy and Paste Data from the PDF Manually

There are two scenarios for you to copy and paste data from PDFs.

1️⃣You can refer to these clicks if your PDF document allows you to copy.

• Click the left mouse button to choose your targeted PDF content > press Ctrl + C > press Ctrl + V into another file where you want to save your copied PDF text.

2️⃣"I can view/read a PDF text but can't extract text, so how do I extract text from PDF?" Here, you can try the following operations.

Step 1. Save your target PDF on the desktop > right-click on it > select Open with > click Choose another app > Word. The PDF default icon will automatically be changed.

Step 2. After selecting Word, you'll see the following warning. Please click OK.

Step 3. Click Enable Editing in your opened Word document> click OK as you see the above warning again.

Step 4. Copy and paste all invoice content to an Excel > trim unnecessary content. Please note the effect of manual conversion varies according to the complexity and richness of your original PDF format.

#2. Extract Data from PDFs with ChatGPT

"Can ChatGPT extract data if the above methods do not work for me? Yes, you can extract data from PDF with ChatGPT if your PDF can be copied. But this case also has limitations.

If your PDF document is not protected by Digital rights management (DRM) and is short, you can easily refer to the following steps to extract data from PDF with ChatGPT.

Step 1. Go to https://openai.com/chatgpt/overview/ > click Log in > select ChatGPT > Verify you are a human.

Step 2. Enter a GPT prompt based on your needs.

Step 3. Let's use a short article as an example and show how to get its text summarization using OpenAI. Please refer to the following pic. After receiving the feedback from OpenAI, copy the content from the article PDF and put it into ChatGPT.

Step 4. In this case, you'll get the text summarization from pdf after seconds. If you're unsatisfied with the outcome, you can ask ChatGPT to regenerate another summary or do other modifications.

#3. Use Free EaseUS ChatPDF to Extract Data from PDF🔥

Nevertheless, if your targeted large file is a DRM-protected PDF and conversion cannot keep your large PDF's original format and content, the most efficient way is to use this efficient and handy ChatGPT alternative, EaseUS ChatPDF. As the name suggests, it aims to simplify your PDF reading with AI.

The following table explains you may adopt free EaseUS ChatPDF rather than free ChatGPT. Please check them out below.

Step 1. Open EaseUS AI ChatPDF, click "Browse File" to select the target PDF file you want to summarize.

Step 2. Wait patiently and let EaseUS ChatPDF AI tool upload and analyze the selected PDF file.

Step 3. EaseUS ChatPDF will automatically generate a summary of the uploaded PDF file and you can browse to check the information in the right pane. 

Moreover, you can also ask EaseUS AI to give you more summarized information by typing some further prompts or orders.

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#4. Use Adobe Acrobat Pro

Can Adobe extract data from PDF? Of course, it can. More precisely, Adobe Sensei AI technology extracts highly accurate data from various document types freely, including native and scanned PDFs, without requiring custom ML templates or model training.

How to copy text from PDF that cannot be copied? Please refer to the following steps to extract data from PDFs using Adobe PDF DRM Removal.

Step 1. Go to https://developer.adobe.com/document-services/apis/pdf-extract/ > click try the demo.

Step 2. After entering the main interface of About PDF Extract API, click Upload PDF at the bottom.

Step 3. In the next window, click Select a file > upload the PDF file you want to extract data. Here, I upload a PDF invoice document.

Step 4. If you're new to Adobe, you'll be prompted to sign in with your Google account, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, LINE, or Kakao. In this case, I continue with Google > follow the prompt to complete my birth year.

Step 5. After logging into your newly created account, the main interface of Adobe will show you your uploaded PDF file. Then, use your mouse to choose your targeted PDF content > copy the editable text from the JSON OUTPUT on the right > save your extracted data safely.

#5. Extract Data from PDF with a PDF-to-Text Converter

As the title suggests, the last way is to seek help from a PDF-to-Text converter like PDFCreator Online. Let's show how it works.

Step 1. Open https://www.pdfforge.org/online/en/extract-text via any browser. You don't need to sign in with your Google account or other accounts.

Step 2. Input your targeted PDF document from its saved path > click Open to upload this online converter.

Step 3. The conversion process depends on the size of your input PDF sample. Click the Download button to get the extracted text from your PDF file. Then, you can click the Downloads folder to open this txt. file and check its correct rate.

Conclusion

How to extract data from PDFs? This article lists five feasible ways for you. In summary, the most straightforward scenario is your PDF allowing page extraction. Then, you can manually copy and paste data from your PDF or extract data from PDF with ChatGPT. On the contrary, if your PDF is Digital rights management protected, file conversion, EaseUS ChatPDF, Adobe Acrobat Pro, or PDFCreator Online could be a better choice.

To some degree, EaseUS ChatPDF outperforms Adobe Acrobat Pro and PDFCreator Online in some specific scenarios. Naturally, you can also choose a suitable one that fits your situation.

FAQs about Data Extraction from PDFs

In addition, there are some relevant topics about data extraction from PDFs. If you're interested, please have a closer look at them below.

1. Is it possible to extract data from a PDF?

Yes, it is possible. An automated data extraction method is the most accurate and efficient approach to extracting and converting data from PDF files to Excel. Automated data extraction systems extract data from documents using text recognition technology known as Optical Character Recognition (OCR).

2. How to extract data from PDF to Excel?

Here are the steps. Please launch Microsoft Excel > go to Data > Get Data > From File > From PDF > select the PDF file > click Import.

3. Why can't ChatGPT extract text from PDF?

ChatGPT can extract PDF data. However, because its primary role is AI data extraction, it does not support advanced OCR on scanned documents.

Why won't ChatGPT accept my PDF?

There are many various reasons why you can't upload PDFs to ChatGPT. For example, size difficulties, file corruption, locked documents, and other factors are among the most common causes. These difficulties combine to cause the inability to upload PDF files in ChatGPT AI.

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