
Show HN: Draw and extract tables from PDF reliably - kjhitcher
http://getbluetail.com
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saradhi
Reliably* - coming with limitations

    
    
      1. Text pdfs only 
    
      2. Template is needed
    

From what I've spoken with 50-60 paid customers for a service I maintain, the
most common concerns I listen are

    
    
      1. No, We get scan pdfs as well 
    
      2. No, We deal with lot of customers, cannot template all

~~~
kjhitcher
Yes, agreed that this is indeed a difficult tradeoff.

Just curious, does extracttable.com provide offline mode? It seems that quite
a few people can't submit their documents to 3rd party server

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saradhi
We are far away from offline mode. May be 2-3 years later thing, if we survive
till that time.

Btw, did you check OpenCV morph line detection? It will help to auto detect
the evident cell/row boundaries - thus reducing human effort

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kjhitcher
I did a bit, but there are tables that simply don't have any lines. Given that
human beings are just so much better at detecting tables than AI, I figured
maybe the solution is to help people quickly draw the table they see, rather
than tweaking algorithm -- hence this new product.

