How do I get PDF documents to upload into Data Prep Studio?

Allie Ragan

I am trying to upload PDF text files into Monarch Data Prep Studio. Although I am sometimes able to do this by dragging the PDF into the "Open Data" portion, there is usually only about a 50/50 chance that the document I am using actually loads into the program. The same thing happens when I try to open my data through the "Open Data" button. The pages load, but they are completely blank. Does any one know what I can do to get my PDFs to load?

CPorthouse

This is usually an indication that your PDF files are image based rather than text based.  When Monarch (Classic or Data Prep Studio) renders the PDF it removes all images, logos, graphics....basically anything not text.  Normally we see this when something is scanned and saved as a PDF.  These files are essentially TIFF images that are wrapped into a PDF file so when Monarch opens these, they are discarded and all you see in the PDF Import view is a blank page.

A quick test you can perform is to open your file in your PDF reader of choice and try to select the text you see.  If you can highlight the text, then Monarch should be able to display it. If you can't or your PDF reader just draws a box around the text, then it is an image and Monarch will not display it.

For example, here is a screenshot of our Monarch Server release notes:

And what it looks like when I try to select the text:

You can see that I can select the image descriptions, but not the image themselves.  This is how it is rendered in Monarch:

 

If this isn't the issue you are seeing, maybe you can upload a copy of the PDF and we can take a quick look, or you can always open a support ticket with Altair and someone should be able to provide more insight into what is going on.

Hope this helps.

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