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Desiree30457092mco2
Inspiring
July 25, 2023
Answered

How to get Excel to pull the right data?

  • July 25, 2023
  • 2 replies
  • 3036 views

Hi there,

 

I am new to forms, but I can make a form that looks and saves ok. However, I'm having a lot of trouble exporting my forms to Excel. The export goes fine, but the conversion is not working properly- it pulls random data from the .pdf and doesn't pull any of the form field answers, which is what I need. I thought you could not create tables in Acrobat, but when I look at the accessibility tags its a mess it terms of what it sees as tables. Basically, I need the field names as columns with the field answers as rows in Excel. Is there a way to get the right data pulled? I'd prefer not to use any scripts as this is for my company and our IT is very strict. 

 

I've tried using Powerquery in Excel as well, with the same results- pulling various parts but not the fields.

 

Any help would be greatlu appreciated!

    This topic has been closed for replies.
    Correct answer Desiree30457092mco2

    Look at the posting from Thom Parker . Use the function "Export Data".


    Hi, 

     

    Okay, so "Export Data" didnt' work (it turns it into an .fdf file that can't be opened in Excel or Power Query through Excel.)

    but "Merge Files into Spreadsheet" under the same menu did work! I can't believe all the internet searches suggested all these complicated procedures/said it wasn't possible within Acrobat when the capability is right there. 

    I've got several hundred files to strip data from and this looks like it will works perfectly. Not sure why Power Query couldn't figure it out like I saw in several examples, but I'll explore that another time.  I also was trying to auto-rename the files based on one of the form fields but I'm giving up on that one as my searches seem pretty positive that is only possible with a script.

     

    Thank you for all you're help. I'm hoping to get better at this the more I practice. 

     

    Desiree 

    2 replies

    D
    Desiree30457092mco2Author
    Inspiring
    July 25, 2023

    Here are some examples of what I mean.

    This is what a portion of my form looks like:

     

    This is what it looks like in Power Query:

    This is what it looks like in Excel:

     

    And this is what it looks like in the Accessiblity tool, if I'm looking at the tags (not sure if this matters at all):

     

    The result I'm trying to get is this: 

     

    Thom Parker
    Community Expert
    Thom ParkerCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    July 25, 2023

    First accessibility tags have nothing to do with form data. Form data is organized with the the form field name. 

     

    How exactly are trying to exporting the data?  

     

    Here are the form data import/export items, accessed in the "Prepare Form" tools. 

     

     

    Thom Parker - Software Developer at PDFScriptingUse the Acrobat JavaScript Reference early and often
    D
    Desiree30457092mco2Author
    Inspiring
    July 25, 2023

    Hi there,

    Thank you for the reply. I really appreciate it!  Sorry, I just directly posted under my post image examples of the problem. Exporting the data to Excel through Acrobat itself doesn't work either. The result of that is the image attached.

     

    Desiree 

     

     

    Bernd Alheit
    Community Expert
    Bernd AlheitCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    July 25, 2023

    How have you created the example?

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