Reading data from a pdf or PPT(any of these)

[Former Member]

Hi All,

I should read the data from a pdf or a ppt using webdynpros. This should not be an adobe interactive form. The only thing is that I should read the contents of a normal PDF(or PPT if not PDF. Either PDF or PPT will serve my purpose). Could anybody suggest me regarding this?

Thanks in advance.

Regards,

Pavan.

[thomas_jung]

I noticed that you have basically asked this question before in previous threads:

[Former Member]

I have used File Upload element. Now the point is if I have 5 slides in a ppt, I should read the contents and store the slides in a table in such a way that each slide will be stored as a field in that table. So the table should contain 5 fields with each field storing a slide. I am confused. Can this be achieved?

[thomas_jung]

As I said earlier, you will have to study the Microsoft format on how the binary file is structured. You can perform SPLIT, CONCATENATE, Offsets, etc on binary content. However you have to fully understand the internal format. To break a PPT up into separate slides that are still PPTs of their own, you are going to have to recreate header information from the PPT format.

[thomas_jung]

It isn't going to be easy. Neither of these document formats are simple to read - and especially PPT which is a propriatery Microsoft Format. The documents will be in binary and will have bit level information. You can of course upload the documents to Web Dynpro ABAP using the fileUpload UI element. You will then have the content in an XSTRING. However you will have to study external documents on the web about how the internal format of each document type is constructed. It isn't like the information is in clear text or that converters have already been written in ABAP.

The binary format specification for PPT can be found here: http://www.microsoft.com/interopdocs/OfficeBinaryFormats.mspx

Information on the PDF format can be found here: http://www.adobe.com/devnet/pdf/pdf_reference.html