Searching through PDF email attachments.

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3puttssuck

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#146971 4-Jun-2014 18:14

Hi Guys.

On a regular basis I get emails with PDF attachments. These attachments are scans of Proof of Deliveries of goods delivered to my clients.
I'm trying to figure out if there is any way of saving these attachments in a folder and then have a search function that I can use to find a specific file. Each scan has a number that is unique, IE S123456, as part of the text with in the document. I am using OSX.

I trust this makes sense and explains what I'm trying to achieve.

Thanks.

RunningMan

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#1059295 4-Jun-2014 19:04

Spotlight in OS X should search file contents automatically. What is the content of the PDFs though - do they contain actual text, or just an image of a page?

Inphinity

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#1059310 4-Jun-2014 19:21

How the PDFs are generated will be a big factor, as RunningMan pointed out, if the content is just a scanned image, rather than text data, what you are asking would require some fairly in-depth OCR functionality. Would it be more practical to save the documents in such a way their their unique identifier is part of the filename? This would then be easily searchable.

3puttssuck

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#1059319 4-Jun-2014 19:34

RunningMan: Spotlight in OS X should search file contents automatically. What is the content of the PDFs though - do they contain actual text, or just an image of a page?

It's just an image of a page.

3puttssuck

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#1059320 4-Jun-2014 19:36

Inphinity: How the PDFs are generated will be a big factor, as RunningMan pointed out, if the content is just a scanned image, rather than text data, what you are asking would require some fairly in-depth OCR functionality. Would it be more practical to save the documents in such a way their their unique identifier is part of the filename? This would then be easily searchable.

I have just saved some with the Unique Identifier as part of the file name. It works but if I have 20 scans with S123456 etc as the unique identifier, the file name will get very long and time consuming to save in this manner. lol.

RunningMan

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#1059324 4-Jun-2014 19:45

What about the email subject line or body - does that have anything useful?

3puttssuck

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#1059341 4-Jun-2014 19:54

RunningMan: What about the email subject line or body - does that have anything useful?

No.

Subject line always say...POD's

Body always says....Hello Dxxxxx. Please find POD's attached. Thanks Bxxxxxxx.

HP

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richms

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#1059345 4-Jun-2014 20:05

you need a proper document storage system, not just a bunch of files in email. as a makeshift option, I think acrobat on its own can ocr things which should then make it searchable by the OS search tools.

Richard rich.ms

RunningMan

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#1059346 4-Jun-2014 20:07

Unless you can change the format that it gets sent in - either the PDF isn't just a scanned image, or the email has some useful info in it - then you'll some software to OCR the PDF so it is searchable.

3puttssuck

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#1059365 4-Jun-2014 20:11

RunningMan: Unless you can change the format that it gets sent in - either the PDF isn't just a scanned image, or the email has some useful info in it - then you'll some software to OCR the PDF so it is searchable.

It's an automated process from the carrier. They load the signed waybills into their scanner and then when it's finished the email is sent out automaticly.

Dynamic

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#1059537 5-Jun-2014 08:33

Ask the carrier to look at whether they can OCR the PDFs. If they are scanning via a photocopier to PDF, some of the copier vendors have basic document management solutions which include the OCRing of files.

3rd party options would monitor a folder for PDFs, OCR them, and then move the result into a different folder. You could also do this at your end. If there are high volumes you can script the detaching of PDFs to a folder.

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