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Tips on using this forum..

(1) Explain your problem, don't simply post "This isn't working". What were you doing when you faced the problem? What have you tried to resolve - did you look for a solution using "Search" ? Has it happened just once or several times?

(2) It's also good to get feedback when a solution is found, return to the original post to explain how it was resolved so that more people can also use the results.

PDF file problem

4 replies [Last post]
Tue, 2008-09-16 06:05
mh shaw
User offline. Last seen 15 years 46 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 8 May 2007
Posts: 22
Groups: Petro-Chem / Oil & Gas
I have a pdf 200 pages document from customer. The data is from P3e and it is huge. I tried to save it as excel, the computer stucks. From Tool (Select Text) is working but (Text to Column) in Excel is not easy. Search command for any phrase gives me few pages and it also searches in Gantt Chart too which is invisible while searching. Anyone may help?
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Replies

Mon, 2008-09-22 10:44
#1
Glenn Douglas
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Joined: 22 Apr 2006
Posts: 39
Groups: Petro-Chem / Oil & Gas
MH

There is software that will convert a pdf to Word or Excel. If you google ’convert pdf’ this will list some of them and there are even some free ones.

So be careful when you transmit pdf documents etc as they can actually be changed.

GD
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Thu, 2008-09-18 09:22
#2
Ronald Winter
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Joined: 4 Jan 2003
Posts: 928
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MH,

You must begin by understanding that a PDF file is just a picture. In a PDF file, letters and numbers are not stored as such; they are stored as a set of squiggly lines. You may see letters and numbers on your screen using a PDF viewer program, but a different computer program only ‘sees’ squiggly lines. You cannot convert a PDF file into something that another program can read and understand.

That is what makes a PDF file such a good medium to transmitting letters; you cannot change anything on it simply by changing a part of it. This same characteristic is why you cannot use a PDF file as a medium of transmitting data from one computer program to another.

Your options are to either type in all the data that you see in the files by hand or to ask your customer for another backup, this time using the export function. Good luck!
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Wed, 2008-09-17 21:51
#3
mh shaw
User offline. Last seen 15 years 46 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 8 May 2007
Posts: 22
Groups: Petro-Chem / Oil & Gas
Can you please explain more. I tried to save in excel but the computer helds (shows not responding). The computer has reasonable RAM. May be file is big one. it is 200 pages (11x17)
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Wed, 2008-09-17 07:54
#4
David Forrest
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Joined: 27 Nov 2001
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Groups: Accreditation Editors, GPCCAR Editors, Petro-Chem / Oil & Gas, Regional Representatives, Sarawak Primavera User Group (SPUG)
You cannot import PDF files, they are Adobe graphic format.
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