Why extracting data from PDFs is still a nightmare for data experts
1 min read
Summary
Data scientists and researchers have struggled to extract data from PDFs, even though they often contain important information that could be invaluable for machine learning algorithms and data analysis.
The reason for this is that PDFs were originally designed to focus on print layout, and as a result, they often end up as a picture of information rather than a digital product.
This necessitates the use of Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software in order to convert the information in PDFs into a usable format.
There are numerous uses for the extraction of data from PDFs, including digitizing scientific research, preserving historical documents, streamlining customer service, and making technical literature more accessible to AI systems.
Currently, most organisational data is unstructured and locked away in difficult-to-extract formats such as PDFs.
