title: Rule based PDF text extraction for verious bills and invoices
body: <p>I have to extract text from invoices and bills pdf files</p>
  
  <p>The files layouts can get complex, though its mostly filled with tables.</p>
  
  <p>I've read a few dozens articles already about the pdf format, how easy it is for our brain to grasp it and how hard it is for a machine to understand its structure.</p>
  
  <p>Also downloaded a few tools like the python's pdfminer and some java tools, some even have rule based layout extraction, like <a href="http://code.google.com/p/lapdftext/" rel="noreferrer">LA-PDBtext</a> these are all great libraries, leaving you the final step.</p>
  
  <p>Adobe also has an online service called exportPdf but it can't be customized</p>
  
  <p>Bottom line, I understand that in order to extract text from structured pdf files and convert it to XML for example, there should be some level of manual work.</p>
  
  <p>I also found <a href="http://www.a-pdf.com/form-data-extractor/index.htm" rel="noreferrer">From Data Extractor</a>, a non free tool with the ability to set extraction rules that claims to do the job, though its hard to find a proper manual and it runs only on windows.</p>
  
  <p>I thought I may even try a to convert those files to images and try <a href="https://github.com/tesseract-ocr/tesseract" rel="noreferrer">tesseract-ocr</a> but decided to ask for advice here before I spend more time on it.</p>
  
  <p>I'll be very grateful if someone with such experience give me a hint.</p>