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Conversion from Pdf to txt file
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Posted by reverendmartian
Oct 15, 2012 at 01:44 PM
I had downgrade UR, MyInfo and MyBase, all for which I own licenses, because I could not view pdf files natively from within the program; whereas, by contrast, I could view pdf files as pdf files from within NVivo. I am uncertain why I resisted converting pdfs to txt files and then importing them into UR et als as txt files. But, for reasons unimportant to this post, I have been consumed for the past few days in trying to find software that reliably converted pdf to txt files and I hit upon that has been a mainstay on my hard-drive for at least a dozen years: OmniPage Pro—-now at version 18. Whereas some reasonably expensives file conversion/data extraction software erroneously finds windspace in the pdf file and breaks whole words into bits of letters, OmniPage Pro has a dictionary and looks for whole words and perfectly converts pdfs into txt files. Every 18 months or so, Nuance sends me an upgrade offer for about 100 dollars and I always upgrade. I had used the software to scan paper pleadings and discovery requests and responses and then convert them into Word documents to write into them. I had never thought about using OmniPage Pro to convert court decisions and journal articles—-I share a “platinum” account on the APA database with a forensic psychologist. But I am certainly going to do it now!!!! Then I will import those converted files into UR and then go at it.
Having said that, I have to quickly point out that you just cannot code in UR etc as you can in NVivo. For sure you can select text in the Document Pane (or whatever it is called) in UR, and then connect it to a node in the hierarchical tree by hyperlink, but you cannot do multi-field queries in UR etc as you can do in NVivo. Nor do I expect that you should be able to have that functionality in software that costs on BDJ less than fifty bucks in comparison to what NVivo costs.
Still and all, the usefulness of UR et als has increased manifold now that I can import perfect formatted txt files from OmniPage Pro 10.
Cheers,
Mitch
Posted by Jon Polish
Oct 15, 2012 at 01:50 PM
You have the pro version of UR? I’m surprised that you don’t see text in the pane. All pdfs (not scanned which are just pictures unless you perform some OCR) are displayed as text and are searchable.
Jon
Posted by Leib Moscovitz
Oct 15, 2012 at 02:08 PM
You can display PDFs internally in UR (if I’m not mistaken, even with the Standard version) by clicking Options, Browser, and then adding .PDF under File Extensions to Display in Internal Browser view; indeed, I have been doing this for years.
Posted by quant
Oct 15, 2012 at 02:14 PM
reverendmartian wrote:
>I had downgrade UR, MyInfo and MyBase, all for which I own licenses, because I could not
>view pdf files natively from within the program; whereas, by contrast, I could view
>pdf files as pdf files from within NVivo.
you can view pdfs in UR as pdf: set up to view pdf in your explorer
reverendmartian wrote:
>to quickly point out that you just cannot code in UR etc as you can in NVivo. For sure you
>can select text in the Document Pane (or whatever it is called) in UR, and then connect
>it to a node in the hierarchical tree by hyperlink, but you cannot do multi-field
>queries in UR etc as you can do in NVivo.
you can do multiline queries in UR: click on Advanced in search item
Posted by reverendmartian
Oct 15, 2012 at 06:58 PM
Jon Polish wrote:
>You have the pro version of UR? I’m surprised that you don’t see text in the pane. All
>pdfs (not scanned which are just pictures unless you perform some OCR) are displayed
>as text and are searchable.
>
>Jon
Yes, I have seen the text displayed and it is a mess.