Preproccessing the text in a report

[ErikZ]

I've managed to land in a temp job that, well, could be better. Right now I'm trying to improve an aspect of it. I receive two printed reports, I compare the two, and if I find matching ID numbers, I cross them off of one report.

Yeah, considering it comes from a database, I was stunned at this task also.

So I've managed to get them to at least TRY and send me an electronic version of the two reports. The problem is, the resulting file will look like the printout. Title on every page, page numbers, column headers, the works.

And it's not just single row entries either. For each ID number, there will be at least 2 sub rows. The ones without a ID number in the first column are a subset of the row above it, with a with an ID number. Sometimes these lines contain a sentence that must be kept with the original line.

I'm probably going to have to write some serious VBA for all this, but I'm curious if there is any resources out there that I can use. Or if you guys have any other suggestions.

Ultimately I'd like to import the report into a table. Then I can do all the timesaving stuff that will make my boss's head spin.

(People are already getting excited about this. "An electronic version of the report? Imagine what you could do with that!&quot

And as much as I'd like the company to send me a useful list, I'll be amazed if they manage to send me anything at all. So access to the database they use and other helpful suggestions along those lines won't work.

 

[jfischer]

The folks at DataJunction make a good text-to-data extraction program, called "Content Extractor." It's part of their data conversion/transformation suite of products. You can find out more info at:

http://www.datajunction.com/products.asp?NavID=82

 

[ErikZ]

Well, that looks very promising. Except for one thing, no price listed anywhere. I suspect this is along the lines of "If you have to ask, you can't afford it."

They did mention their competitors sell similar products for 30k to 250k.

I have programmed before, but usually I make sure the data I get is in good condition before I get to play with it. I’ve never had to do this before and was wondering if anyone of you have.

I doubt it. Normally when you get a job dealing with databases, you get access to the data in a nice manageable format.

 

[jfischer]

If you don't mind checking out some inexpensive Shareware programs, try Parse-O-Matic 3.6, a DOS command line text parser, or ReportView 5.1.0.3, a Windows GUI text processor. They can be downloaded for evaluation from

http://www.shareware.com.

Search for report text extract.

 

[ErikZ]

Thanks for the tip jfischer! I've found Parse-o-matic, but I have been unable to find ReportView. Google seems to come up with something, but it doesn't look like the same program you're talking about.