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Richtpt
Richtpt
Inspiring
March 18, 2022
Question

OCR PDF with Power Automate and Adobe Services?

  • March 18, 2022
  • 4 replies
  • 2874 views

We get PDF's via email weekly and would like to grab the text/data off the PDF's and put it into a SQL Server database.  We signed up for Adobe Services and plan to use that.

 

I know how to create a flow that will watch an email folder and pull the attachment off the email, but from there I'm lost.  I've googled a bunch but am having troubles finding anything that explains how to use Power Automate with Adobe Services to pull text/data off the PDF.  I see there's an option the Create a Searchable PDF using OCR, but that looks like it wants to save the file not actually pull text off the PDF.  I also see there's an option to Extract Tables from PDF but it appears to save the data in .xlsx format.  I'm confused if this is possible and if so, how to do it.

 

Any suggestions?  Has anyone done this before with Adobe?

Thanks!

This topic has been closed for replies.

4 replies

Richtpt
RichtptAuthor
Inspiring
March 19, 2022

I guess I didn't word my question correctly.  I'm going to be using Microsoft's Power Automate with the Adobe Services plug-in.  

 

With Power Automate, when an email is sent to a specific folder and has a PDF attachment, I can grab the attachment, send it through Adobe Services, OCR the page and use Power Automate to save the text.  Or at least I'm supposed to be able to do that.  I can't find any documentation telling me how to use Adobe Services with Power Automate to do this.  And again, I will be using Power Automate to send the OCRed text to a database.

T
Test Screen Name
Brainiac
March 19, 2022

I think you need to explain what you mean by the "Adobe Services plugin". That doesn't sound like part of Acrobat. It's very easy to end up in the wrong forum - Adobe's offerings are broad and overlapping. But Acrobat has plug-ins (that don't do this), while Adobe has other services for PDF (which aren't plugins).

    Richtpt
    RichtptAuthor
    Inspiring
    March 21, 2022

    Sounds like I might have the wrong forum for this question.  I did some further research and it appears I should have asked this in the Document Services API forum instead.  I'm working with a PDF so just automatically chose Acrobat.  Thanks!

    T
    Test Screen Name
    Brainiac
    March 19, 2022

    Acrobat is for personal use only, not server, and its automation is very basic. It's an interactive tool. Look for specialist (non-Adobe, not to be mentioned) PDF OCR high volume software.

    Bernd Alheit
    Bernd Alheit
    Community Expert
    March 19, 2022

    You can't use Adobe Acrobat for this.

    ls_rbls
    ls_rbls
    Community Expert
    March 19, 2022

    Seems like that option to connect to a database was removed long time ago.

     

    See this discussion:

    https://answers.acrobatusers.com/can-adobe-acrobat-pro-connect-sql-database-q16262.aspx

    Richtpt
    RichtptAuthor
    Inspiring
    March 19, 2022

    I'm going to be using Microsoft Power Automate to connect to the database.  I just need the Adobe Services to OCR the PDF, then I'll use Power Automate to put the results in the database.  The problem is I can't find anything explaining how to use the Adove Services with Power Automate to do this.

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