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Power Platform Community / Forums / Power Automate / Splitting Parsed text ...
Power Automate
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Splitting Parsed text in to different columns

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Posted on by 508

I am trying to extract certain text from over 500 PDFs.  I built a flow that somewhat works but I cannot figure out how to parse out to unique cells. It puts everythingi in one cell.  What I want this flow to do is get the file name, variable 'files, display it in cell A1, then I want it to look for the next requirement, variable 'matches', which gets me the specialty, then look in the next parse which is get any number in the contract, this could end up being like over 5 numbers, then I want it to find me the contract length, variable contract length. then there is another parsing for contract lenght, variable 'ContractLengths2'.  How do I accomplish this?  This is presently being entered into EXCEL, which I am using differnt hard return, and number lookups to parse out all the fields.  Thanks for your consideration.

 

VeeLearnMSFT_0-1641993526839.png

 

  • MichaelAnnis Profile Picture
    5,727 Moderator on at

    Create a list

    Add item to list (do this for each variable you have)

    Join Text (use your list and join with New Line delimiter)

    Set %JoinedText% to clipboard

    Then, Paste into A1

  • VeeLearnMSFT Profile Picture
    508 on at

    Michael, I built the steps but I still get it all in one cell and it is giving me some spaces in between data.  not sure why it is giving me a lot of spaces in between.  Its sporatic sometimes lots of empty rows and sometimes no empty rows.  I tried delimiting by new line, I also tried putting in a "|" pipe in between the variables to see if it would separate it.  Maybe I should delimit it by a carraige return?  I am not sure I am sure its some small quirk that I am missing.

     

     

    VeeLearnMSFT_3-1641999336047.png

     

     

    VeeLearnMSFT_0-1641997454248.png

     

  • MichaelAnnis Profile Picture
    5,727 Moderator on at

    Each Add Item to list should be separate.

  • VeeLearnMSFT Profile Picture
    508 on at

    I'm really trying but cant seem to get it. Im sorry 😞

     

    Will this process parse it on each line or one line in adjusted columns? 

    This is how I envision the output

    VeeLearnMSFT_2-1641999092591.png

     

    So as an example:

    VeeLearnMSFT_1-1641998808819.png

     

     

     

    VeeLearnMSFT_0-1641998746523.png

     

  • MichaelAnnis Profile Picture
    5,727 Moderator on at

    Sorry, I was doing 1 column on different rows.  If you want different columns, the default would be a tab delimiter.

    Here is the whole thing for my test variables:

    MichaelAnnis_0-1641999712005.png

    Here is the JoinText:

    MichaelAnnis_1-1641999735190.png

    And the Paste Text:

    MichaelAnnis_2-1641999766109.png

    And the result:

    MichaelAnnis_3-1641999783019.png

     

     

  • VeeLearnMSFT Profile Picture
    508 on at

    Michael,

    I am getting closer, I can get almost all of the delimiters to work except the dollar and contract terms or Length. It must be delimited differently.   You can see that the file name, file modified date, the specialty is fine but the dollar values and the contract term which is the August 26,2019TDecember 2021 is ignored and put in different spots.   Is there a way to force a delimiter or change how the data comes in so that it deliminates properly?

     

    Excel Running Extract Running:

    VeeLearnMSFT_0-1642010072210.png

     

     

    Top Half flow.

    VeeLearnMSFT_1-1642006274046.png

    Bottom half.

    VeeLearnMSFT_1-1642010124744.png

    How List comes out:

    VeeLearnMSFT_3-1642010512202.png

     

     

    How JoinedText Comes out:

    VeeLearnMSFT_2-1642010424364.png

     

     

  • Benny_1857 Profile Picture
    124 on at

    My suggestion is keep getting each PDF in one cell one by one.

    Because of different type of delimiters, especially for those special delimiters, such as Carriage Return#(cr) and Line Feed#(lf), it will be very complicated and slow solve it via PA.

    But it is a piece of cake to Excel Power Query to solve it.

    For my personal experience, the excel internal problem, use PQ, the excel external automatic interactive problem, use PA.

    Then run this excel PQ via PA.

     

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