Extract structured data from construction PDFs. Convert specifications, BOMs, schedules, and reports from PDF to Excel/CSV/JSON. Use OCR for scanned documents and pdfplumber for native PDFs.
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Based on DDC methodology (Chapter 2.4), this skill transforms unstructured PDF documents into structured formats suitable for analysis and integration. Construction projects generate vast amounts of PDF documentation - specifications, BOMs, schedules, and reports - that need to be extracted and processed.
Book Reference: "Преобразование данных в структурированную форму" / "Data Transformation to Structured Form"
"Преобразование данных из неструктурированной в структурированную форму — это и искусство, и наука. Этот процесс часто занимает значительную часть работы инженера по обработке данных." — DDC Book, Chapter 2.4
The conversion follows the ETL pattern:
import pdfplumber import pandas as pdExtract table from PDF
with pdfplumber.open("construction_spec.pdf") as pdf: page = pdf.pages[0] table = page.extract_table() df = pd.DataFrame(table[1:], columns=table[0]) df.to_excel("extracted_data.xlsx", index=False)
# Core libraries pip install pdfplumber pandas openpyxlFor scanned PDFs (OCR)
pip install pytesseract pdf2image
Also install Tesseract OCR: https://github.com/tesseract-ocr/tesseract
For advanced PDF operations
pip install pypdf
import pdfplumber import pandas as pddef extract_tables_from_pdf(pdf_path): """Extract all tables from a PDF file""" all_tables = []
with pdfplumber.open(pdf_path) as pdf: for page_num, page in enumerate(pdf.pages): tables = page.extract_tables() for table_num, table in enumerate(tables): if table and len(table) > 1: # First row as header df = pd.DataFrame(table[1:], columns=table[0]) df['_page'] = page_num + 1 df['_table'] = table_num + 1 all_tables.append(df) if all_tables: return pd.concat(all_tables, ignore_index=True) return pd.DataFrame()Usage
df = extract_tables_from_pdf("material_specification.pdf") df.to_excel("materials.xlsx", index=False)
import pdfplumberdef extract_text_with_layout(pdf_path): """Extract text preserving layout structure""" full_text = []
with pdfplumber.open(pdf_path) as pdf: for page in pdf.pages: text = page.extract_text() if text: full_text.append(text) return "\n\n--- Page Break ---\n\n".join(full_text)Usage
text = extract_text_with_layout("project_report.pdf") with open("report_text.txt", "w", encoding="utf-8") as f: f.write(text)
import pdfplumber import pandas as pddef extract_table_from_area(pdf_path, page_num, bbox): """ Extract table from specific area on page
Args: pdf_path: Path to PDF file page_num: Page number (0-indexed) bbox: Bounding box (x0, top, x1, bottom) in points """ with pdfplumber.open(pdf_path) as pdf: page = pdf.pages[page_num] cropped = page.within_bbox(bbox) table = cropped.extract_table() if table: return pd.DataFrame(table[1:], columns=table[0]) return pd.DataFrame()Usage - extract table from specific area
bbox format: (left, top, right, bottom) in points (1 inch = 72 points)
df = extract_table_from_area("drawing.pdf", 0, (50, 100, 550, 400))
import pytesseract from pdf2image import convert_from_path import pandas as pddef ocr_scanned_pdf(pdf_path, language='eng'): """ Extract text from scanned PDF using OCR
Args: pdf_path: Path to scanned PDF language: Tesseract language code (eng, deu, rus, etc.) """ # Convert PDF pages to images images = convert_from_path(pdf_path, dpi=300) extracted_text = [] for i, image in enumerate(images): text = pytesseract.image_to_string(image, lang=language) extracted_text.append({ 'page': i + 1, 'text': text }) return pd.DataFrame(extracted_text)Usage
df = ocr_scanned_pdf("scanned_specification.pdf", language='eng') df.to_csv("ocr_results.csv", index=False)
import pytesseract from pdf2image import convert_from_path import pandas as pd import cv2 import numpy as npdef ocr_table_from_scanned_pdf(pdf_path, page_num=0): """Extract table from scanned PDF using OCR with table detection""" # Convert specific page to image images = convert_from_path(pdf_path, first_page=page_num+1, last_page=page_num+1, dpi=300) image = np.array(images[0])
# Convert to grayscale gray = cv2.cvtColor(image, cv2.COLOR_RGB2GRAY) # Apply thresholding _, binary = cv2.threshold(gray, 150, 255, cv2.THRESH_BINARY_INV) # Extract text with table structure custom_config = r'--oem 3 --psm 6' text = pytesseract.image_to_string(gray, config=custom_config) # Parse text into table structure lines = text.strip().split('\n') data = [line.split() for line in lines if line.strip()] if data: # Assume first row is header df = pd.DataFrame(data[1:], columns=data[0] if len(data[0]) > 0 else None) return df return pd.DataFrame()Usage
df = ocr_table_from_scanned_pdf("scanned_bom.pdf") print(df)
import pdfplumber import pandas as pd import redef extract_bom_from_pdf(pdf_path): """Extract Bill of Materials from construction PDF""" all_items = []
with pdfplumber.open(pdf_path) as pdf: for page in pdf.pages: tables = page.extract_tables() for table in tables: if not table or len(table) < 2: continue # Find header row (look for common BOM headers) header_keywords = ['item', 'description', 'quantity', 'unit', 'material'] for i, row in enumerate(table): if row and any(keyword in str(row).lower() for keyword in header_keywords): # Found header, process remaining rows headers = [str(h).strip() for h in row] for data_row in table[i+1:]: if data_row and any(cell for cell in data_row if cell): item = dict(zip(headers, data_row)) all_items.append(item) break return pd.DataFrame(all_items)Usage
bom = extract_bom_from_pdf("project_bom.pdf") bom.to_excel("bom_extracted.xlsx", index=False)
import pdfplumber import pandas as pd from datetime import datetimedef extract_schedule_from_pdf(pdf_path): """Extract project schedule/gantt data from PDF""" with pdfplumber.open(pdf_path) as pdf: all_tasks = []
for page in pdf.pages: tables = page.extract_tables() for table in tables: if not table: continue # Look for schedule-like table headers = table[0] if table else [] # Check if it looks like a schedule schedule_keywords = ['task', 'activity', 'start', 'end', 'duration'] if any(kw in str(headers).lower() for kw in schedule_keywords): for row in table[1:]: if row and any(cell for cell in row if cell): task = dict(zip(headers, row)) all_tasks.append(task) df = pd.DataFrame(all_tasks) # Try to parse dates date_columns = ['Start', 'End', 'Start Date', 'End Date', 'Finish'] for col in date_columns: if col in df.columns: df[col] = pd.to_datetime(df[col], errors='coerce') return dfUsage
schedule = extract_schedule_from_pdf("project_schedule.pdf") print(schedule)
import pdfplumber import pandas as pd import redef parse_specification_pdf(pdf_path): """Parse construction specification document""" specs = []
with pdfplumber.open(pdf_path) as pdf: full_text = "" for page in pdf.pages: text = page.extract_text() if text: full_text += text + "\n" # Parse sections (common spec format) section_pattern = r'(\d+\.\d+(?:\.\d+)?)\s+([A-Z][^\n]+)' sections = re.findall(section_pattern, full_text) for num, title in sections: specs.append({ 'section_number': num, 'title': title.strip(), 'level': len(num.split('.')) }) return pd.DataFrame(specs)Usage
specs = parse_specification_pdf("technical_spec.pdf") print(specs)
import pdfplumber import pandas as pd from pathlib import Pathdef batch_extract_tables(folder_path, output_folder): """Process all PDFs in folder and extract tables""" pdf_files = Path(folder_path).glob("*.pdf") results = []
for pdf_path in pdf_files: print(f"Processing: {pdf_path.name}") try: with pdfplumber.open(pdf_path) as pdf: for page_num, page in enumerate(pdf.pages): tables = page.extract_tables() for table_num, table in enumerate(tables): if table and len(table) > 1: df = pd.DataFrame(table[1:], columns=table[0]) df['_source_file'] = pdf_path.name df['_page'] = page_num + 1 # Save individual table output_name = f"{pdf_path.stem}_p{page_num+1}_t{table_num+1}.xlsx" df.to_excel(Path(output_folder) / output_name, index=False) results.append(df) except Exception as e: print(f"Error processing {pdf_path.name}: {e}") # Combined output if results: combined = pd.concat(results, ignore_index=True) combined.to_excel(Path(output_folder) / "all_tables.xlsx", index=False) return len(results)Usage
count = batch_extract_tables("./pdf_documents/", "./extracted/") print(f"Extracted {count} tables")
import pandas as pddef clean_extracted_data(df): """Clean common issues in PDF-extracted data""" # Remove completely empty rows df = df.dropna(how='all')
# Strip whitespace from string columns for col in df.select_dtypes(include=['object']).columns: df[col] = df[col].str.strip() # Remove rows where all cells are empty strings df = df[df.apply(lambda row: any(cell != '' for cell in row), axis=1)] # Convert numeric columns for col in df.columns: # Try to convert to numeric numeric_series = pd.to_numeric(df[col], errors='coerce') if numeric_series.notna().sum() > len(df) * 0.5: # More than 50% numeric df[col] = numeric_series return dfUsage
df = extract_tables_from_pdf("document.pdf") df_clean = clean_extracted_data(df) df_clean.to_excel("clean_data.xlsx", index=False)
import pandas as pd import jsondef export_to_multiple_formats(df, base_name): """Export DataFrame to multiple formats""" # Excel df.to_excel(f"{base_name}.xlsx", index=False)
# CSV df.to_csv(f"{base_name}.csv", index=False, encoding='utf-8-sig') # JSON df.to_json(f"{base_name}.json", orient='records', indent=2) # JSON Lines (for large datasets) df.to_json(f"{base_name}.jsonl", orient='records', lines=True)Usage
df = extract_tables_from_pdf("document.pdf") export_to_multiple_formats(df, "extracted_data")
| Task | Tool | Code |
|---|---|---|
| Extract table | pdfplumber | |
| Extract text | pdfplumber | |
| OCR scanned | pytesseract | |
| Merge PDFs | pypdf | |
| Convert to image | pdf2image | |
| Issue | Solution |
|---|---|
| Table not detected | Try adjusting table settings: |
| Wrong column alignment | Use visual debugging: |
| OCR quality poor | Increase DPI, preprocess image, use correct language |
| Memory issues | Process pages one at a time, close PDF after processing |
image-to-datacad-to-dataetl-pipelinedata-quality-checkNo automatic installation available. Please visit the source repository for installation instructions.
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