Convert PDFs into text?

[danhendo888]

[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Tahoma,Calibri,Geneva,sans-serif]So we receive hundreds of invoices from our customers every day.
The invoices are in pdf format but such that you can select the text and copy and paste etc
Is there a way to convert multiple pdfs of invoices into data so that I can see it Excel or Word?

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[John_w]

Try this macro on one of the PDFs. It copies and pastes the specified PDF to the active sheet. Change the PDF file and Acrobat Reader file path to suit.

The code uses SendKeys which isn't reliable and is quite slow because it calls Wait at various points - adjust the times to suit.

Run the macro from the Excel UI (Developer tab), not the VBA editor.

Public Sub Copy_and_Paste_From_PDF_File2()

    Dim AdobeApp As String
    Dim PDFfile As String
    Dim StartAdobe
     
    ActiveSheet.Cells.Clear
    
    AdobeApp = "C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Acrobat Reader DC\Reader\AcroRd32.exe"   'Acrobat Reader
    
    PDFfile = "C:\path\to\Invoice 123.pdf"
    
    StartAdobe = Shell(Q(AdobeApp) & " " & Q(PDFfile), 1)
    
    'Wait 3 seconds to allow PDF to open
    Application.Wait DateAdd("s", 3, Now)
    
    'Select All and Copy from PDF
    SendKeys "^a^c", True
    
    'Wait 5 seconds to allow Select All and Copy to finish
    Application.Wait DateAdd("s", 5, Now)
    
    'Paste into Excel
    AppActivate Application.Caption
    ActiveSheet.Range("A1").Select
    SendKeys "^v", True
   
End Sub

Private Function Q(text As String) As String
    Q = Chr(34) & text & Chr(34)
End Function