Company A has structured data. They input this into a PDF (making it unstructured) and send it to Company B. Company B now has to use PDF parsing software to turn it back into structured data.
Why?
Why do we convert structured data to PDFs?
1–10 of 21 posts
Re: Why do we convert structured data to PDFs?
#2Back in the day company A would send a paper document to company B and naturally somebody would have to retype it. PDF is great for that legacy workflow or anything where you need print output or screen output that exactly resembles print output.
PDF has facilities for tagging documents such that they can be reflowed like HTML so they can be viewed on different sized screens. It is a boon for accessibility but framing the discussion around accessibility as opposed to a better experience for everyone, particularly automated tools, is hard. (e.g. in politics there is the analogy of how we "can't have good things" because policies that are good for everyone get framed as policies that benefit a racial or other group perceived as a "special interest")
I spoke w/ Larry Masinter at Adobe and he told me Adobe would like people who want structured data in their PDF documents to simply attach files to the PDF. A scientific paper could contain a CSV file of the data, for instance, or a business document could contain a JSON or XML document.
Note that "structured" is not a panacea because the structure might not be the same in the two organizations. For exchange of structured data to take place the organizations have to agree on some ontology, something that happens in some industries some of the time, but it isn't free, and when it is not in place people still have an excuse to continue using paper processes or processes that emulate paper processes.
Re: Why do we convert structured data to PDFs?
#3Many reasons. In finance, PDF reports are passed between companies instead of JSON/XML, etc.. because:
1. PDF is considered tempered proof. Obviously, not true, but legal is ok with that.
2. PDF can be reviewed quickly by non-technical folks, and then parsed and store into databases.
3. PDF is flat file that can be archived easily per legal, other formats such as word documents are used for that as well.
In a sense, PDF is what people want. Structured data is what machines want.
Re: Why do we convert structured data to PDFs?
#4Many reasons. In finance, PDF reports are passed between companies instead of JSON/XML, etc.. because: 1. PDF is considered tempered proof. Obviously, not true, but legal is ok with that. 2. PDF can be reviewed quickly by non-technical folks, and then parsed and store into databases. 3. PDF is flat file that can be archived easily per legal, other formats such as word documents are used for that as well. In a sense,…
Shouldn't both exist? I.e. PDF for the human and data for the machine?
Re: Why do we convert structured data to PDFs?
#5Back in the day company A would send a paper document to company B and naturally somebody would have to retype it. PDF is great for that legacy workflow or anything where you need print output or screen output that exactly resembles print output. PDF has facilities for tagging documents such that they can be reflowed like HTML so they can be viewed on different sized screens. It is a boon for accessibility but framin…
Thanks for responding. I'm curious why PDF doesn't have any metadata attached to it that can easily be parsed out by machines. Sigh
Re: Why do we convert structured data to PDFs?
#6Many reasons. In finance, PDF reports are passed between companies instead of JSON/XML, etc.. because: 1. PDF is considered tempered proof. Obviously, not true, but legal is ok with that. 2. PDF can be reviewed quickly by non-technical folks, and then parsed and store into databases. 3. PDF is flat file that can be archived easily per legal, other formats such as word documents are used for that as well. In a sense,…
Shouldn't both exist? I.e. PDF for the human and data for the machine?
Each report costs money. People don't want to pay extra for the same data.
Re: Why do we convert structured data to PDFs?
#7Back in the day company A would send a paper document to company B and naturally somebody would have to retype it. PDF is great for that legacy workflow or anything where you need print output or screen output that exactly resembles print output. PDF has facilities for tagging documents such that they can be reflowed like HTML so they can be viewed on different sized screens. It is a boon for accessibility but framin…
Thanks for responding. I'm curious why PDF doesn't have any metadata attached to it that can easily be parsed out by machines. Sigh
You might like this thesis:
http://www.bloechle.ch/jean-luc/pub/Bloechle_Thesis.pdf
I made a HN post on this here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33674525
Unfortunately I contacted the author via youtube and the work is proprietary, owned by the business he either created or sold-to.
Re: Why do we convert structured data to PDFs?
#8Back in the day company A would send a paper document to company B and naturally somebody would have to retype it. PDF is great for that legacy workflow or anything where you need print output or screen output that exactly resembles print output. PDF has facilities for tagging documents such that they can be reflowed like HTML so they can be viewed on different sized screens. It is a boon for accessibility but framin…
Thanks for responding. I'm curious why PDF doesn't have any metadata attached to it that can easily be parsed out by machines. Sigh
Re: Why do we convert structured data to PDFs?
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thanks for responding. I'm curious why PDF doesn't have any metadata attached to it that can easily be parsed out by machines. Sigh
You might like this thesis: http://www.bloechle.ch/jean-luc/pub/Bloechle_Thesis.pdf I made a HN post on this here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33674525 Unfortunately I contacted the author via youtube and the work is proprietary, owned by the business he either created or sold-to.
Thanks for sharing -- will dive deeper. This has been keeping me up at night recently...