Has anyone here ever converted the "greysheet" to a spreadsheet format?

[James_OldeTowne]

[BillJones]

Do you want to spend your entire life putting numbers on spread sheets? And after you done all that work have little to show for it?

 

You can subscribe to the Gray Sheet on-line and get the thing at a day before you get it through the mail.

[James_OldeTowne]

Do you want to spend your entire life putting numbers on spread sheets? And after you done all that work have little to show for it?

 

You can subscribe to the Gray Sheet on-line and get the thing at a day before you get it through the mail.

Bill, what I mean is converting the document electronically from PDF to spreadsheet form.

 

There are only a few part of the greysheet that I care about, and I usually end up doing an old-fashioned "cut-and-paste" with scissors and glue! I'm considering a program to grab up all the tables and put them into a spreadsheet so I can print out only what I care about. 80% of the greysheet is useless to me.

 

By the way, I think it is against greysheet rules to do so... but I would be doing it strictly for my own use.

[Dwaine]

You can't go from PDF to spreadsheet. The reason is normally the data in the PDF is like an image and it will not convert back to spreadsheet for that reason.

 

I have tried everything I know and can't find a way, not for the same reason.

[James_OldeTowne]

You can't go from PDF to spreadsheet.

It depends on how the PDF was generated. If it was with images (by scanning ,etc.), then you are correct. However, the greysheet is actually a compressed document of text, and the text can be extracted. Here's a random partial example:

 

1893 Isabella Quarter 9220 400.00 440.00 465.00 510.00 525.00 575.00 650.00 725.00 900 1,000 2,950 ­ 3,200 5,325 5,750

1900 Lafayette Dollar 9222 360.00 400.00 505.00 555.00 750.00 830.00 1,550.00 1,700.00 2,800 3,100 8,100 9,000 13,000 14,250

1921 Alabama Centennial 2x2 9225 144.00 160.00 252.00 272.00 255.00 280.00 440.00 480.00 700 775 1,350 1,500 3,100 3,400

1921 Alabama Centennial 9224 114.00 122.00 150.00 165.00 165.00 180.00 350.00 385.00 550 600 1,125 1,250 3,200 3,500

1936 Albany, New York 9227 232.00 250.00 250.00 275.00 260.00 285.00 275.00 305.00 290 320 350 380 440 480

1937 Antietam, Battle of 9229 480.00 520.00 560.00 610.00 585.00 635.00 600.00 655.00 640 700 745 825 875 950

Arkansas Centennial ­ Type 70.00 75.00 78.00 85.00 83.00 90.00 92.00 100.00 95 105 155 170 410 450

1935 Arkansas ­ PDS Set 210.00 230.00 240.00 260.00 250.00 270.00 277.00 305.00 305 330 610 660 2,050 2,250

1936 Arkansas ­ PDS Set 210.00 230.00 240.00 260.00 250.00 270.00 277.00 305.00 305 330 640 700 2,400 2,600

1937 Arkansas ­ PDS Set 210.00 230.00 260.00 285.00 270.00 300.00 280.00 310.00 320 350 760 835 4,000 4,400

1938 Arkansas ­ PDS Set 250.00 275.00 375.00 415.00 445.00 485.00 450.00 500.00 475 525 1,475 1,600 4,450 4,850

1939 Arkansas ­ PDS Set 460.00 500.00 775.00 850.00 905.00 1,000.00 915.00 1,010.00 975 1,065 2,300 2,500 7,200 7,850

1936 S Bay Bridge San Fran. ­ Oak.9254 125.00 135.00 130.00 140.00 140.00 150.00 155.00 170.00 160 175 275 315 380 420

 

[Conder101]

As you say it is possible to extract the text, but the problem is how to import it into the spreadsheet. I believe you can import it if it is a comma delimited text file. You might try using file & replace to get rid of the existing commas, then another file and replace to change the spaces into commas. If you then import the text file into the spreadsheet it should put each field into the next field going across the spreadsheet and the linefeed at the end should start the next row of the sheet.

 

Now one problem with this is that each of the words at the beginning of each line will also be placed into a different column and they each are of different lengths. This would result in the columns being off. This would then have to be fixed by hand. You could remove the commas between the words before you import the file and that may make it easier.

[TomB]

What you are asking would likely be frowned upon by the owners or publishers of the Greysheet, but since it is for personal use have you considered grabbing each section that is of interest to you and dropping these sections into a blank word document? By doing this you can customize those sections that you want to display and put them in the order that you think is most logical. Once done, you simply print it out on your printer.

[James_OldeTowne]

What you are asking would likely be frowned upon by the owners or publishers of the Greysheet, but since it is for personal use have you considered grabbing each section that is of interest to you and dropping these sections into a blank word document? By doing this you can customize those sections that you want to display and put them in the order that you think is most logical. Once done, you simply print it out on your printer.

Yes, I have done that as well. That's definitely better than the manual cut-and-paste.

 

However, I'd like to be able to customize it considerably more than that....

[Dcoin]

James, for what purpose? Just out of curiosity.

[James_OldeTowne]

James, for what purpose? Just out of curiosity.

Two reasons.

 

I like to carry an absolute minimum of reference material around with me. In fact, I print my greysheet at 50% size, double-sided, which lets me put four pages on a single page.

 

By having it in spreadsheet format, I could easily strip out the garbage I don't care about.

 

Also, if I want to know for example what a complete Washington quarter set XF bids for, I could easily calculate that off a spreadsheet.

[DC Dawg]

You can't go from PDF to spreadsheet. The reason is normally the data in the PDF is like an image and it will not convert back to spreadsheet for that reason.

Dwaine: There are a number of ways to produce PDFs. PDF is a superset of Postscript and if the item is generated from a document (as opposed to scanned), the data can be read and reformatted as long as you know the mark-up language.

 

Now one problem with this is that each of the words at the beginning of each line will also be placed into a different column and they each are of different lengths. This would result in the columns being off. This would then have to be fixed by hand. You could remove the commas between the words before you import the file and that may make it easier.

Not if you know how to directly read the file and the PDF/Postscript commands!!

 

What you are asking would likely be frowned upon by the owners or publishers of the Greysheet, but since it is for personal use...

The concept is called fair use. You can quote a section for illustrative purposes if the source is noted. You can also make copies as a backup for personal use. If James has a subscription and uses the information in the manner in which he agreed to as part of his subscription agreement, electronically cutting and pasting is as legal as cutting and pasting the paper.

 

I found this page that explains how to use gmail to convert PDF to html or another format. It may be easier to convert the PDF to HTML then HTML to XLS.

 

Scott