Help extracting data from an PDF

[HerrPetersen]

Hi there,

 

After some years of taking a break from Chinese I restarted to learn a little. To motivate me I signed up for the HSK4 test on October 11.  To learn for it I searched for material to study an found this list:

http://www.mandarinchineseschool.com/new-wordschinese-charactersidioms/300-free-download-new-hsk-level-4-vocabulary-list-with-example-sentences-pinyin

When trying to copy-paste them to excel for anki-import the format (rows and columns) breaks. Does anyone know how to preserve the format? Or if not, is there a comparable list with example sentences? (not the 20.000 one which has received mixed reviews)

 

Thanks in advance.

 

Edit: I mananged to get this done using  a programm called nitro pro 9. (there is a free trial version available)

[Shelley]

It's usually very difficult to do anything with PDFs because they are more like a picture than a document with editable text,

 

If you have Acrobat Reader Professional it allows you to do some manipulation with document, but as it does not use Unicode for the characters its very difficult to export them unless it is as a picture which is what it is in the PDF.

 

I use Excel and PDFs a lot and I have spent the last half hour trying to do it and I am not having any luck, i didn't think I would, but I thought I would check.

 

If you use Pleco its very easy to add cards to study, look them up in the dictionary and then add it to your flashcards. Pleco's  flashcard app is excellent. There is a free demo version. try it, you might like it.   You can also import ready made lists. I prefer Pleco to Anki for various reasons, but mostly because Pleco is for Chinese and Anki is a general purpose study tool.

 

Hope you get it sorted

[Shelley]

Oh glad you did it. Didn't notice your edit till now.

[imron]

some years of taking a break from Chinese I restarted to learn a little

Welcome back, and good luck with the HSK.

[HerrPetersen]

Thanks for looking into it Shelley. I have a long history with anki, so I will stay with it. I do use Pleco for making lists though.

 

Imron: Thanks

[Shelley]

Glad you are coming back to studying Chinese and I hope HSK 4 goes well for you, let us know how you get on

 

If I ever have to extract data from a PDF, I'll know who to ask