extracting text preceding duplicate search term results

Question

working on tax deductions i am attempting to extract the dollar amount (which precedes the common search term atm withdrawal) in my pdf bank statements

I'm essentially trying to filter all of my atm withdrawals from store purchases.

able to search the term (ATM withdrawal) and export that to csv/xlsx however it would be great to extract the info before or after my search term.

can anyone assist?

try67 · Accepted Answer

Actually, I just thought of another option, which doesn't involve a script, but will require some post-processing.

You can use the Advanced Search command in Acrobat to look for this term and then export the results to a CSV file.

The resulting file will contain the immediately context of each result, which should include the numbers you're looking for.

However, it will also include a bunch of other stuff which you're probably not very interested in...

try67 · Answer

This would require a custom-made script.

I can think of two ways of doing it: A straight-forward search of the file for the phrase "ATM withdrawal" and then extracting the text before it, or using the "Search & Remove Text" command under an Action to highlight all of these terms and then a separate script to extract the numeric text preceding them. The latter would require some additional steps but is much more robust and will be able to handle longer and more complex files. It does require Acrobat Pro, though.

If you're interested in either solution feel free to contact me privately (try6767 at gmail.com) to discuss it further. I've developed various similar tools in the past for my clients, so it should not be a problem.

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