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Rajah900
New Participant
October 28, 2018
Answered

Has Save as Text option output format been amended?

  • October 28, 2018
  • 2 replies
  • 1084 views

I have been using Adobe Reader to output text from a form for a number of years and when I used it recently the format of the resultant text file is now different.

Previously each cell in the form appeared as a separate line in the text file but now each line of cells creates a corresponding line in the text file.

I have an excel spreadsheet which the text file is imported into and a vb macro then creates a new sheet of data formatted so that I can manipulate the figures but not now!

Can anyone help with this problem?

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer try67

It's possible something changed in the way the application converts a PDF to a text file (it's not such a straight-forward task), or maybe something changed in the underlying structure of the files you're exporting. Or both...

To know for sure you would need to export an old file, where you know it worked differently before, or try the new files in an older version of Reader.

2 replies

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Test Screen Name
Brainiac
November 1, 2018

You can export the form data, rather than save all the page as text.

try67
try67Correct answer
Community Expert
October 29, 2018

It's possible something changed in the way the application converts a PDF to a text file (it's not such a straight-forward task), or maybe something changed in the underlying structure of the files you're exporting. Or both...

To know for sure you would need to export an old file, where you know it worked differently before, or try the new files in an older version of Reader.

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Rajah900Author
New Participant
October 29, 2018

Hi

The pdf form I am using has not been changed so I managed to install an older version of Reader 11 and the text output format produced is as I am used to one cell per line. The oldest version I can get from Adobe is 19.008.20071 the latest is 20080 and both give me the different format so a change has been made prior to or in 20071.

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Test Screen Name
Brainiac
October 29, 2018

I think you've proved Reader has changed. Adobe are always trying to improve this sort of thing (generally, people for whom it doesn't work well complain; while people who are happy don't. So the change reflects the unhappy people, and makes a different group unhappy). It's a pity Adobe don't give options instead, but you may need to look at a different workflow. If this is a fillable form, there are much better ways.

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