The script uses a programming language called Ruby to process the data into a normalized CSV file.
Your computer needs Ruby installed. Macbooks have it installed by default, so it should work. If it does not or does not have the correct version of ruby, you'll need to let me know, and I can help install it.
The script reads an input.txt file line by line to extract the pricing data. It then prints out the data line by line into a CSV format.
If you're interested, the script's source code is here: convert.rb
- Copy data from pdf to a file called
input.txt. Unfortunately, copying and pasting often does not smartly separate the fields into columns. IE: The pasted data is all in one column. - Run this script. Details below to produce an
output.csv. - Import the
output.csvfile to Excel or Google Spreadsheets. - Manually clean up data. The script is not perfect.
Downloading the convert.rb script onto your computer. Let's say you've downloaded it to the folder
~/Downloads/price_list
You need to open up a "Terminal", change into that ~/Downloads directory and run the script. The Terminal app is under "Application/Utiltiles/Terminal".
Then you need to run this command to "change" into that ~/Downloads/price_list folder.
cd ~/Downloads/price_list
You can run ls to "list" the files within the folder. You should have these files (remember you're creating input.txt):
❯ ls ~/Downloads/price_list
convert.rb input.txt
Another useful command is pwd, which stands for the present working directory.
To run the script and see the output
ruby convert.rb
To run the script and save the output
ruby convert.rb > output.csv
The second way of running the script with the > writes the output to output.csv.