Unable to use PDF Reader function in Alteryx

[ivoiculescu2020]

Dear team,

I need to use Alteryx to read the data from pdf documents but I am getting this error message when I am trying to use the PDF reader function.

I attached a screenshot of this error message. I am using Alteryx Designer x64, version: 2019.3.5.17947

Thank you for your help!

Kind regards,

Ioana

[Emil_Kos]

Hi @ivoiculescu2020,

If you want to use PDF reader functionality build in Alteryx you need to have a machine learning component and newer version of Alteryx. 

[ivoiculescu2020]

@Emil_Kos 

Thank you so much for your quick reply!

I installed Alteryx version 2020.3.7.30263 and I also tried installing the R packages - which I thought I did successfully - but I tried to use the PDF reader again and this error message shows up. Please help!

Thank you!!

[Emil_Kos]

Hi @ivoiculescu2020,

Do you have this tool pallete?

I am not sure you have installed the R package correctly.

[ivoiculescu2020]

@Emil_Kos 

yes, I do see this tool pallete:

[Emil_Kos]

Hi @ivoiculescu2020,

Maybe you need to instal this tool once more?

https://gallery.alteryx.com/#!app/PDF-Input--Text-and-Image-/5be5ec8d0462d71ffce6deaa

It would be also a good idea to drag one of the predictive tools to the tool palette or try using example workflows to check if you will receive an error on them.

[markcurry · Accepted solution]

Hi @ivoiculescu2020 

I've seen the PDF reader tool, give that error message when the additional R packages it uses aren't installed.   I think that tool needs, pdftools and tesseract R libraries for it to run.  I've attached 2 workflows that you can run, which will install the R packages for you.  Make sure you don't see any warnings when installing the packages, if you do just re-run the workflow.

Hope that helps, 

Mark

[ivoiculescu2020]

@markcurry @Emil_Kos 

it worked!! thank you both for your help!

Have a lovely week!

Kind regards,

Ioana

[markcurry]

Nice one!  Hopefully that's the tool you are after.  I'd use that to read PDFs that aren't OCR'ed, where you can't select the text.  For OCR'ed PDF's I use this PDF Input tool...

https://gallery.alteryx.com/#!app/PDF-Input/5b685aff0462d710907f7a3b

[ivoiculescu2020]

@markcurry thank you again! that's very helpful!