Noodlesoft Forums

I'm not sure if Hazel can do this but I'm looking to extract text from PDFs. I've noticed some posts in this forum talk about what sounds like text extraction but I've never found a post that explains how it's done.

TL;DR - I want to be able to extract text from batches of PDFs to be able to import that data into our accounting software.

Full story

We have a business, one software does the day to day processes and management of clients (Realtime). Internally, we then have our business accounting software (Xero). Xero has an API but Realtime doesn't.

At the end of the deal, Realtime exports a PDF invoice that goes to the client. We hold money in a trust account which covers the invoice so we then create the same invoice in Xero for internal paper trail purposes which allows us to then pay for the invoice from the trust.

Some invoices might have 2 line items, other invoices might have 8-10 items and its time consuming.

Hazel can't do the import into your accounting software since I assume that uses specific formats or API. You'll need to write a script to do that.

I would be happy to have the data extract from a PDF and into a csv file or something similar. The import into the other software could be done either a Zapier type platform after a new line is added to the CSV or I could just import manually.

I just can't find how Hazel can extract text from PDF and then what Hazel can do with it.

I am very new to Hazel, only just bought it last week.

Hazel doesn't write to any file. You will need a script to do that type of thing. Hazel can extract text and do things like rename or sort into a subfolder based on that text, but there are no built-in actions to write out data.