The PDF2XL "Content" Menu
PDF2XL Support avatar
Written by PDF2XL Support
Updated over a week ago

The Content tab provides you with more options relating to the data you need to convert.

Marking Mode

By default, the Marking Mode is set to " By Content", which allows the application to try and determine whether the data you are mapping is a Table or a Field. However, you can force it to create only Tables or Fields by selecting that option. The "Text" option allows you to select text only so you can copy and paste it elsewhere.

Learn more about marking tables or fields here.

Clipboard

You can use these options if you want to copy elements and paste them elsewhere.

For example, if you have a similar table on two different pages, you can simply select the table from the first page, Copy, then Paste it into place on the second page. This is the same functionality as right-clicking on the element and selecting " Copy Table/Field" and "Paste Here".

Table Title

These options allow you to modify the title of a table or header.

Mark Title: When a table is selected, this allows you to select any text from the document and assign it to the table as the table title. Double-clicking this option will allow you to stay in this mode so you select other tables and a title for each.

Edit Table Title: Use this option if you wan to edit the title of the currently selected table.

Title from Previous: Copy the previous table's title to the current one. This will append a selected table to the one directly above it.

Edit Column Header: Use this option to edit the header of the currently selected column. Learn more about column headers here.

Format

These tools will allow you to modify the existing table to your needed specifications.

Column Format: This allows you to assign a format to the data in the selected column. You can mark a column as Text, Number, Currency, Date, Time (and in Enterprise - Image). This will help out when you find errors such as the OCR reading an "O" as a "0". The default setting is Automatic, which will allow the application to try and figure it out on its own.

Merge: By selecting more than one column, you can use this option to merge them to create one large column. You can also merge rows and cells.

Split Mode: When this option is enabled, you can click on any column in the selected table to split it into two. You will need to click on this tool again to turn it off when you're done splittig.

Split Selection: If you find you need to break a selected column into two columns, you can use this tool.

Copy Format: Use this to copy the format (Text, Number, Currency, Date, Time, Image) of the current selection to another part of the layout. Double click to copy to more than one place.

Table Structure

These tools make it easier to set up your table layout. 

Table Structure: Select a method for PDF2XL to decide where to split the table into rows. Manually adjusting rows or columns will switch to Manual mode, overriding whichever method had been previously selected.

Fully Automatic: Rows and columns are detected automatically.

Rows from text: Rows will be detected by analyzing the positions of words.

Rows from lines: Rows will be detected by looking for graphic lines. Anything that isn't separated by a line will be considered a single row.

Create rows above column text: Whenever text is found in the selected column, it will be considered the start of a new row. This option is only enabled while one column is selected.

Create rows between column text: Whenever text is found in the selected column, a new row will begin halfway between it and the previous text in the column.  
This option is only enabled while one column is selected.

Create rows below column text: Whenever text is found in the selected column, it will be considered the end of its row.
This option is only enabled while one column is selected.

Rows of same height: All rows will have the same height, and this height can be adjusted by the user.

Use Table Header: When enabled, PDF2XL will use the first row of the current table as a column header. The header row is identified by it's darker orange colour.

Find Table End: You can mark only the beginning of a table and press this button to let PDF2XL Enterprise automatically search for the end of the table by finding similar data.

Find Table by Header: When activated, PDF2XL Enterprise will attempt to use the table's header to find similar tables on each page, by finding the same header. If the table doesn't have a header, the first row will be automatically converted to a header.

Show Field: While a field is selected, this provides several options for where it will appear in the converted document.

Once: The field's contents will appear only once, separately. In a single sheet conversion, it will appear as though it were a separate table, and in a multi-sheet conversion it will have its own sheet.

Every page: The field's contents will appear once per page of the original document next to each table.

Every line: The field's contents will appear in every line of every table.

With table: The field's contents will appear in every line of one selected table.

Transpose Columns-Rows: When enabled, the selected table's columns will become rows, and vice versa.

Replace List

If you have a specific word or character in your document that the OCR is getting wrong ( for example, identifying "word" as "w0rd"), or if you want to simply change a word that is used throughout the document, you can use the Replace List.

Did this answer your question?