Reading data from PDF files into R

linux r pdf scrape pdf-scraping
Justin picture Justin · Feb 8, 2012 · Viewed 21.2k times · Source

Is that even possible!?!

I have a bunch of legacy reports that I need to import into a database. However, they're all in pdf format. Are there any R packages that can read pdf? Or should I leave that to a command line tool?

The reports were made in excel and then pdfed, so they have regular structure, but many blank "cells".

Answer

Justin picture Justin · Feb 8, 2012

So... this gets me close even on a fairly complex table.

Download a sample pdf from bmi pdf

library(tm)

pdf <- readPDF(PdftotextOptions = "-layout")

dat <- pdf(elem = list(uri='bmi_tbl.pdf'), language='en', id='id1')

dat <- gsub(' +', ',', dat)
out <- read.csv(textConnection(dat), header=FALSE)

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