Converting already filled out form to a fillable form

[JR Bussard]

I have a large list of forms in non form format that are all the same and I want to convert them to an excel format. The problem is that most of the fields are already filled out so when I go to convert to a form it does not recognize the filled out portions. Is there any way to do this?

[maxwyss]

In which form are those forms? Are they printed out, scanned and then processed using OCR, or are they filled out, and then either printed to PDF, or flattened as PDF?

In any case, you would need to know the position of the field (in other words, its coordinates). There you would find the words, and — after applying some logic — you get the field values. Finally, you have to export that data in a form Excel can read (the most obvious one would be tab-delimited).

Shameless plug: I have created such systems in the past; it is more than a weekend project, but works amazingly well. In case you consider buying over making, feel free to contact me in private for further discussions and quotes.

Hope this can help.