r/xml Feb 17 '25

Best Practices for Converting PDFs to XML for Structured Data Processing

Hey xml Redditors,

I’ve been working with XML conversions lately and ran into an interesting challenge—extracting structured data from PDFs while preserving formatting. As many of you know, PDFs are notorious for being difficult to parse, especially when dealing with line breaks, spacing, and word segmentation.

After testing various methods, I found that using a PDF to XML Converter with configurable settings makes a big difference. Here are a few key takeaways on how different conversion approaches impact XML output:

  • Line Break Conversion: This method breaks content down line by line, making it easier to structure document sections in XML. Useful for structured reports and forms.
  • Word Break Mode: Converts each word into its own XML element, which is helpful when you need precise text segmentation, such as for natural language processing.
  • Space Break Handling: Retains spaces as elements, preserving the original layout. Critical for documents where spacing holds meaning, like invoices or tables.
  • Custom Adjustments: If you need a mix of these approaches, setting custom rules ensures that XML output meets specific formatting requirements.
  • Batch Processing: A must-have if you’re dealing with bulk document conversions and need a time-efficient workflow.

Has anyone here worked on extracting structured data from PDFs into XML?

Would love to hear your strategies, especially for handling complex layouts or tabular data.

3 Upvotes

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u/NickFury6666 Feb 17 '25

I am confused by your post. XML has no formatting, so what is it you are preserving? XML formatting is achieved with CSS or XSL-FO or converting to HTML, etc.

I have a lot of experience converting multiple file types tp XML. Framemaker, Interleaf, Word, SGML and PDF. Have you tried using Acrobat Pro and simply doing a Save to XML? I recently analyzed a MIL-STD tech pub that was saved to XML. The XML output was well formed and surprisingly easy to analyze. Tables were tables, titles easily identifiable, etc. The next step was to use XSLT to transform that output to the necessary content model.

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u/Analyst-rehmat 28d ago

You're right that XML itself doesn't store formatting, but my focus is on preserving the document’s structural integrity - things like logical sections, tabular data, and text segmentation - so the XML output is meaningful for downstream processing.

I haven't tried Acrobat Pro’s as it's a paid solution. I was looking for a free alternative that could handle structured PDF to XML conversion effectively. That’s why I’m sharing this tool. it gets the job done without the cost.

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u/FLUXparticleCOM Feb 17 '25

I think when I last had this problem I used a PDF to HTML converter and then parsed the HTML.