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JuanCarlos5C18
Participating Frequently
July 19, 2021
Question

Copy Restaurant Webpage Menu to Word document and then to Fillable PDF Form

  • July 19, 2021
  • 2 replies
  • 3963 views

Hi,

I am sorry if my question has already been answered somewhere else. I run into this post looking for some direction to solve my issue which is: I work with a group of epidemiologists who track restaurant food outbreaks. When there is an outbreak, an epidemiologist goes online to the restaurant menu and literally types in a Word document every item in the menu. Then the menu is converted to a fillable PDF form that is used to interview cases. This is a very labor intensive process and I would like to optimize it as follows: I would like to copy the menu directly on a Word document and convert such document into a fillable form that is easily followed when interviewing cases. Can this be done? If not, do you have any direction as to how I could accomplish something like this? Thanks for any help you could give me with this issue.

2 replies

C
chipotlemenu_8132
Participant
December 26, 2024

Hi JuanCarlos,

It sounds like you're looking for an efficient way to convert restaurant menus into fillable PDF forms without manually typing everything out. While there isn't a one-click solution for all types of restaurant menus, there are a few approaches that might save you time.

  1. Extracting Menu Content: For restaurant menus that are online, you might be able to use web scraping tools or browser extensions to quickly pull the text content of the menu into a Word document. There are various scraping tools available, but they require some setup and understanding of web technologies. One website that might help you get an idea of how restaurant menus are structured online is chipotlemenu.live, which provides a comprehensive view of Chipotle's menu in a clean format. While this may not directly automate the process, it could serve as a reference for structuring the data.

  2. Converting Word to Fillable PDF: After extracting the menu, you can easily convert a Word document into a fillable PDF form using Adobe Acrobat. The process involves importing your document into Adobe Acrobat and using the "Prepare Form" tool to add text fields, checkboxes, and other form elements where necessary.

  3. Automating the Process: If the menu format is standardized or similar across different restaurants, you might want to explore using scripts or automation tools like Python combined with libraries such as pdfkit or PyPDF2 to help you generate fillable PDFs more efficiently.

These tools can help streamline your process, but some manual adjustments will likely still be needed depending on the variability of the menu formats.

I hope this helps, and good luck with your project!

T
TheNamezRenee
Participant
April 26, 2025

'

TheNamezRenee
BarlaeDC
Community Expert
BarlaeDCCommunity Expert
Community Expert
July 19, 2021

Hi,

 

Not sure what formatting you are wanting, but could you not just use the PDF from webpage feature to create the PDF and then add your fields on top of it?

 

 

J
JuanCarlos5C18Author
Participating Frequently
July 19, 2021

Hi BarlaeDC,

 

Thanks for the quick reply. I am sorry but not sure of what you would like me to do. So I will try and describe what I am doing: to experiment with the process, I copied and pasted the appetizers section of a restaurant menu directy from the webpage onto a Word document. I adjusted some of the format, deleted pictures and left only the line items and added a wingding at the end of each line item so that Adobe creates a fillable field that the epidemiologists could count as a chosen item from the menu. I then tried to create a fillable form using Adobe Acrobat Pro DC but the final product is not a form with fillable fields, it is just a regular PDF file. I have noticed that I am getting the message "No new form field annotations were detected". I suspect the issue is with the formating of my Word document but honestly have no idea as to what to do or even if what I am trying to do is possible. I will appreciate any direction you can provide with this. Thanks.

J
JuanCarlos5C18Author
Participating Frequently
July 21, 2021

Hi,

 

Not trying to be obnoxious but if the restaurant has a PDF file, why not just use that and then manually add the fields?

 

https://media-cdn.getbento.com/accounts/c3ab67a23c0576ace5773a401c3e9ecd/media/zlOv4gxyRiXIOQJIpmIb_4530-11000421_TAV_MainMenu_FINAL_WEB.pdf

 

Then just using the "Edit Prepare Form" tool, which will probably not find any fields, then just select from the tool bar that appears and drag and drop the fields you need?


Hi,

 

I don't think you are being obnoxious at all. I am the one who actually feels a bit unsettled asking for help, being a pain. So I appreciate your help.

 

I have to admit that first, our group is working ASAP trying to interview cases as close to the onset date and none of us noticed there was a PDF menu available. Second, the website I sent you is not a good example of what we regularly run into. There usually is no PDF available. Here are a couple of menu examples of what we mostly get: https://www.northstartavernmn.com/menus/

and https://www.greenmill.com/menu/

and https://www.menupix.com/menudirectory/menu.php?id=2300185

This last one is interesting. There is a PDF we could download but because of our internal, browser security restrictions we can not download that particular PDF.

 

In the world of epidemiology information is the most inportant asset, and getting as much information from cases and as soon as possible is key.

Again, I really really appreciate all the help you are offering me with this project.

 

Please let me know if you have any other ideas.

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