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You're reading from  Exploring Microsoft Excel’s Hidden Treasures

Product typeBook
Published inSep 2022
PublisherPackt
ISBN-139781803243948
Edition1st Edition
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Author (1)
David Ringstrom
David Ringstrom
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David Ringstrom

David Ringstrom exclaimed “Well, this is a stupid program, you can’t do anything with it” the first time that he launched Lotus 1-2-3 in 1987, unaware that pressing the slash key displayed the menu. That moment sealed his fate as he is now a nationally recognized spreadsheet expert. In 1991, David started a spreadsheet consulting practice that he still runs today. David has taught over 2,000 webinars and published hundreds of articles, all on Excel, and he imparts spreadsheet skills to thousands of college students each year. He is the author or coauthor of five books and the technical editor of over 40 books. He is a certified public accountant and a graduate of Georgia State University and has served in the United States Navy.
Read more about David Ringstrom

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Extracting data from PDF files

Some users purchase third-party software to extract data from PDF files due to a lack of better alternatives. PDF stands for Portable Document Format, a product of Adobe Corporation. PDF files are cross-platform compatible, and can be opened on any device. Extracting data from PDF files with Power Query requires Excel 2021 or Microsoft 365. The steps in this section cannot be carried out in Excel 2019 or earlier. At the time of writing, Excel for macOS does not support extracting data from PDF files.

Tip

Word 2013 and later allows you to open and edit most PDF files if your version of Excel doesn’t allow extracting data with Power Query. Open a PDF file in Word the same way you would open a Word document, and then copy and paste the results over to Excel. Some PDF documents will transfer cleanly, while others will be a jumbled mess.

Any software that extracts data from PDF files uses optical character recognition, so somtimes your data...

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Exploring Microsoft Excel’s Hidden Treasures
Published in: Sep 2022Publisher: PacktISBN-13: 9781803243948

Author (1)

author image
David Ringstrom

David Ringstrom exclaimed “Well, this is a stupid program, you can’t do anything with it” the first time that he launched Lotus 1-2-3 in 1987, unaware that pressing the slash key displayed the menu. That moment sealed his fate as he is now a nationally recognized spreadsheet expert. In 1991, David started a spreadsheet consulting practice that he still runs today. David has taught over 2,000 webinars and published hundreds of articles, all on Excel, and he imparts spreadsheet skills to thousands of college students each year. He is the author or coauthor of five books and the technical editor of over 40 books. He is a certified public accountant and a graduate of Georgia State University and has served in the United States Navy.
Read more about David Ringstrom