web
You’re offline. This is a read only version of the page.
close
Skip to main content

Announcements

Welcome to the Power Platform Communities
News and Announcements icon
Community site session details

Community site session details

Session Id :
Power Platform Community / Forums / Power Automate / How to Extract text fr...
Power Automate
Unanswered

How to Extract text from PDF file by folder?

(1) ShareShare
ReportReport
Posted on by Community Power Pla... Microsoft Employee

Hi Team, 

 

I am pretty new to this power automation world & not sure this is the right platform to ask this question. 

 

I am trying to build a RPA for our outbound orders team. 

 

> we receive multiple orders in pdf format form our customers 

> then we copy paste around 10 fields from these pdf files to existing excel sheet one by one. 


I would like to know is there a way I can extract the text form multiple pdf files instead of converting a one file. 


Example - Get all the pdf files from one folder and extract the text from those pdf files. 

 

Is there a way I can automate this by power automation? 

 

Thank you

Categories:
Power Automate Desktop
  • fraenK Profile Picture
    fraenK 2,125 on at

    Power Automate Desktop can extract text from PDF but this would only work if the PDF files have all the same layout and text elements could be extracted using regular expressions.

    https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-automate/desktop-flows/actions-reference/pdf#extracttextfrompdfaction

    https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-automate/desktop-flows/actions-reference/text#parsetext

     

    If the PDF files have different layouts then you'll need to use the AI Builder within a cloud flow:

    https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-automate/use-ai-builder

    https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/ai-builder/model-types

     

    There are also prebuilt 3rd party solutions dedicated for this specific type like: https://workist.com/en/ 

  • Community Power Platform Member Profile Picture
    Community Power Pla... Microsoft Employee on at

    Thanks for that Can I convert multiple files in word by using power desktop app instead  of doing it one by one. 

    How can I convert the files in doc word? 

    Thank you

  • fraenK Profile Picture
    fraenK 2,125 on at

    You can open (some) PDFs directly with Word but this won't help you much. 😉

  • Community Power Platform Member Profile Picture
    Community Power Pla... Microsoft Employee on at

    Yes, that's not gone help me as I am trying to build a RPA for this process. 

     

Under review

Thank you for your reply! To ensure a great experience for everyone, your content is awaiting approval by our Community Managers. Please check back later.

Helpful resources

News and Announcements

Welcome to the Power Platform Communities

Quick Links

Season of Sharing Community Challenge Winners!

Congratulations to our community stars!

Kudos to our 2025 Community Spotlight Honorees

Expanding mentorship, skilling, and AI innovation

Congratulations to the July Top 10 Community Leaders!

These are the community rock stars!

Leaderboard > Power Automate

#1
11manish Profile Picture

11manish 231 Super User 2026 Season 2

#2
David_MA Profile Picture

David_MA 217 Super User 2026 Season 2

#3
Mohsin Ali Profile Picture

Mohsin Ali 170

Last 30 days Overall leaderboard

Featured topics

Known issue with browser automation in Power Automate for Desktop on Google Chrome 146 and 147
Share your ideas and struggles with building Power Automate flows!
Survey: Power Automate mobile app
How to Ask for Help with Your Power Automate Workflow
Start and wait for an approval action
Restore a deleted flow
List of actions cheat sheet for Power Automate Desktop
Welcome to the Power Automate forum!

Product updates

Microsoft Power Platform Community release plans