Portable Document Format is the most popular document format for storing data in professional as well as professional front.These files can be easily shared through mails in an encrypted form. The level of security provided by PDF files is unmatched and thus they prove to be a trustworthy format for sharing confidential data.

When a user accesses a PDF file, there may arise the need to extract data from that particular file. The text extraction process is quiet easy and can be carried out in a few simple steps.

However, it should be noted that the extraction process might result in some compromise with the original formatting of the data. The results may vary in different processes of extraction.

To Extract Few Lines

In case the user desires to extract only a few lines from a PDF file, the below-mentioned steps can be followed:

  1. Open the PDF file.
  2. Select the lines that have to be extracted.
  3. Right click on the selected lines.
  4. Select Copy option.
  5. Save the copied lines in a Word or Notepad document.

To Extract Complete Text

The complete PDF file text can be extracted in two output formats.One is RTF and the other is in Word document.

  • Extract Text In Rich Text Format

Almost all the word processors can easily read and write RTF documents. Therefore extracting PDF file data in RTF is a feasible choice:

  1. Open the PDF file.
  2. Click on Save As option.
  3. Select Export To option.
  4. Click on Rich Text Format
  • Extract Text In Word Document

In case the users directly want to extract the PDF file text in a Word file, the users can do so very easily.

  1. Open the PDF file.
    2. Click on Save As option.
  2. Select Export To option.
  3. Click on Microsoft Word.
  4. Selectthe version in which you want to save the data Word Document for MS Word 2004 and later versions.
  5. Select Word 97-2003 Document in case MS Word is of 2003 and previous versions.

Note: In order to perform the above-mentioned procedure, Adobe Acrobat installation is necessary. We have used Adobe Acrobat Pro for all the above processes.

Alternate Solution For Extracting Text From A PDF File

Manual extraction of PDF files prove to be a tedious task in case the amount of text that needs to be extracted is quiet large.An alternate solution for extracting data from a PDF file is PDF Toolbox. The software allows the user to extract text as well as embedded images from the PDF files into a new file. The user can extract text from multiple PDF files without any issues.It reduces the user time and efforts and performs the conversion in a very less time. The advance settings options in the software are an added advantage in the software that makes the complete extraction process very effectual.

Conclusion

Extraction of PDF data can be done by both manual and professional methods. However, professional tools like PDF Toolbox serve to be more efficacious and time efficient as compared to the manual procedures.