Let's start with the obvious: PDFs are devils masquerading in angelic garb. They emerged in the early '90s as a purportedly benevolent effort by developer Adobe Systems Inc. to create 'a universal way to communicate documents across a wide variety of machine configurations, operating systems, and communication networks.' Translation: Let's create software that, with a mouse click, can change any file – including data tables – into an image that cannot be imported into a spreadsheet or database manager.
But PDFs have been driving geeks crazy ever since. Fortunately, there are a number of free or inexpensive programs that extract data from PDFs and turn it into text that imports easily into CAR software. The format resolved an important dilemma because they can be created from the output of any software and can be viewed on any computer. Moreover, because PDFs are hard to edit, there was a reasonable assurance that a PDF version was the same as the original.
Today all it takes is any of the widely available PDF print drivers distributed for free. Which means it's even easier for records custodians to make our lives harder. So, how do we deal with them? The key is to know the public records law for your state. In Florida, for example, the law requires agencies to provide copies in the medium requested if they maintain it that way. If a PDF is all you can get, it's time to turn to several free or low-cost programs.
For the last few years, XPDF/PDFTOTEXT has been the way to go. It's command-line driven and available at no cost. Foxit Software offers PDF Text Viewer ($39) with a simple Windows interface and Foxit PDF to Text Converter ($59) which includes batch conversion tools. Cogniview PDF2XL ($95) converts PDF tables directly into Excel and handles scanned PDFs with some success. Investintech Able2Extract Pro ($119.95) also extracts text and imports into Excel, Word, or HTML using OCR.
These programs add more bullets to our gun belts and maybe a wooden stake and some wolf's bane potion as well.