Puzzling PDF

Path	csiph.com!v102.xanadu-bbs.net!xanadu-bbs.net!feeder.erje.net!eu.feeder.erje.net!newsfeed.xs4all.nl!newsfeed3a.news.xs4all.nl!xs4all!post.news.xs4all.nl!not-for-mail
Return-Path	<anthra.norell@bluewin.ch>
X-Original-To	python-list@python.org
Delivered-To	python-list@mail.python.org
X-Spam-Status	OK 0.063
X-Spam-Evidence	'H': 0.88; 'S': 0.00; 'converted': 0.09; 'statements': 0.09; 'python': 0.11; '"o"': 0.16; '"s"': 0.16; 'digits.': 0.16; 'erroneously': 0.16; 'letters.': 0.16; 'received:195.186': 0.16; 'received:bluewin.ch': 0.16; 'unavailable': 0.16; 'all,': 0.19; 'bit': 0.19; '(the': 0.22; 'manual': 0.22; 'header:User-Agent:1': 0.23; 'parse': 0.24; 'text.': 0.24; "doesn't": 0.30; 'statement': 0.30; 'figure': 0.32; 'reader': 0.33; 'display': 0.35; 'problem.': 0.35; 'but': 0.35; 'idle': 0.36; 'shows': 0.36; 'displays': 0.38; 'to:addr:python- list': 0.38; 'expect': 0.39; 'to:addr:python.org': 0.39; 'how': 0.40; 'even': 0.60; 'letters': 0.60; 'hope': 0.61; 'such': 0.63; 'more': 0.64; 'day': 0.76; 'bank': 0.76; 'played': 0.84; 'lift': 0.91; 'mistake': 0.91; 'thing,': 0.91
Date	Sun, 16 Feb 2014 15:00:00 +0100
From	"F.R." <anthra.norell@bluewin.ch>
User-Agent	Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux i686; rv:24.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/24.2.0
MIME-Version	1.0
To	python-list@python.org
Subject	Puzzling PDF
Content-Type	text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding	7bit
X-BeenThere	python-list@python.org
X-Mailman-Version	2.1.15
Precedence	list
List-Id	General discussion list for the Python programming language <python-list.python.org>
List-Unsubscribe	<https://mail.python.org/mailman/options/python-list>, <mailto:python-list-request@python.org?subject=unsubscribe>
List-Archive	<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-list/>
List-Post	<mailto:python-list@python.org>
List-Help	<mailto:python-list-request@python.org?subject=help>
List-Subscribe	<https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list>, <mailto:python-list-request@python.org?subject=subscribe>
Newsgroups	comp.lang.python
Message-ID	<mailman.7056.1392559276.18130.python-list@python.org> (permalink)
Lines	26
NNTP-Posting-Host	2001:888:2000:d::a6
X-Trace	1392559276 news.xs4all.nl 2886 [2001:888:2000:d::a6]:34209
X-Complaints-To	abuse@xs4all.nl
Xref	csiph.com comp.lang.python:66537

Show key headers only | View raw

Hi all,

Struggling to parse bank statements unavailable in sensible 
data-transfer formats, I use pdftotext, which solves part of the 
problem. The other day I encountered a strange thing, when one single 
figure out of many erroneously converted into letters. Adobe Reader 
displays the figure 50'000 correctly, but pdftotext makes it into 
"SO'OOO" (The letters "S" as in Susan and "O" as in Otto). One would 
expect such a mistake from an OCR. However, the statement is not a scan, 
but is made up of text. Because malfunctions like this put a damper on 
the hope to ever have a reliable reader that doesn't require 
time-consuming manual verification, I played around a bit and ended up 
even more confused: When I lift the figure off the Adobe display (mark, 
copy) and paste it into a Python IDLE window, it is again letters (ascii 
83 and 79), when on the Adobe display it shows correctly as digits. How 
can that be?

Frederic

Back to comp.lang.python | Previous | Next — Next in thread | Find similar | Unroll thread

Thread

Puzzling PDF "F.R." <anthra.norell@bluewin.ch> - 2014-02-16 15:00 +0100
  Re: Puzzling PDF Roy Smith <roy@panix.com> - 2014-02-16 10:33 -0500
    Re: Puzzling PDF Alister <alister.ware@ntlworld.com> - 2014-02-16 18:59 +0000

csiph-web