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General discussion

New Web Query w/ a .pdf url

Sep 20, 2005 12:40AM PDT

Is it possible to create a web query that goes out and gets the information from a url that ends in .pdf? If not is there another way to get this information?
Thanks in advance

Discussion is locked

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Yes. Example.
Sep 20, 2005 12:45AM PDT
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Updated New Web Query w/ a .pdf url
Sep 20, 2005 1:07AM PDT

Is it possible to create a new web query in Excel that goes out and gets the information from a url that ends in .pdf? If not is there another way to get this information?

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Re: web query pdf to Excel
Sep 20, 2005 1:30AM PDT

Somehow, I don't think so. But if you enlighten me about web queries and their use in Excel to get information from an url that ends in .htm, I might be able to tell more.

A good example might be http://www.symantec.com/index.htm , although I might be totally wrong, of course.

Why do want such a feature?

Kees

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Defining the method.
Sep 20, 2005 2:07AM PDT

In short, the answer is yes, it can be done. But do you have a programmer to help you write code to fetch the information inside the PDF that is on some URL? If not, then for your current staff the answer will be no.

Again, so far it is possible but you need some programming muscle.

Bob

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And ...
Sep 20, 2005 6:06AM PDT

This seems a two-part problem. The first part would be the easiest.

1. Use http (embedded in the programming language of your choice) to get the file and put it in the windows\temp folder.
2. Write a program in any programming language to get the information out (contact Adobe for the specs of the pdf-format) and put it in Excel-format.

As Bob says, it can be done. Google copies pdf-files, puts the contents in it's indexes and makes them available in html-format. That's comparable. But I will immediately admit it's something I can't do myself.

Kees