Often when you are processing customer records or doing mail merge, it might be useful to get initials from a given name, like JFK for John F Kennedy.
You can do this using simple text formulas (left(), mid(), find()) combined with if(). Here is how:
Assuming cell B3 has the full name, then this is the formula you can use to get the Initials:
=if(len(B3)-len(SUBSTITUTE(B3," ",""))=0,left(B3,1),if(len(B3)-len(SUBSTITUTE(B3," ",""))=1,left(B3,1)&mid(B3,find(" ",B3)+1,1),left(B3,1)&mid(B3,find(" ",B3)+1,1)&mid(B3,find(" ",B3,find(" ",B3)+1)+1,1)))
As you can see, I have used different logic to find initials, based on the number of spaces in the name.
For the sake of simplicity I have limited the formula for names with three, two and one part only (ie first name, middle name and last name), for some reason if the name has more than 3 parts, then this formula would result in initials for the first three chunks of the name. See the example on google docs.
More on names and text formulas: Find word count using excel formulas, 15 excel formulas for everyone, Generate tag clouds using VBA.
7 Responses to “Extract data from PDF to Excel – Step by Step Tutorial”
Dear Chandoo,
Thank you very much for this and it is very helpful.
However, all the Credit Card Statements are now password protected.
Please advise how can we have a workaround for that
Hello sir,
How to check two names are present in the same column ?
Thanks and Regards
Hi, Thank you for the great tip. One problem, when I click on get data >> from file, I don't see the PDF source option. How can I add it?
I tried to add it from Quick Access toolbar >>> Data Tab, but again the PDF option is not listed there.
I am using Office 365
Hi, Thank you for your video. I see you used the composite table, but I when I load my pdf, it does not load any composite table. It has 20 tables and 4 pages for one bank statement. I have about 30 bank statements that I want to combine. Your video would work except that I can't get the composite table and each of the tables I do get or the pages does not have all the info. what to do?
Dear Chandoo,
How do we select multiple amount of tables/pages in one PDF and repeat the same for rest of the PDF;s in the same folder and then extract that data only on power query.
Thank you
Hi, Thank you for your video. I see you used the composite table, but I when I load my pdf, it does not load any composite table. It has 20 tables and 4 pages for one bank statement. I have about 30 bank statements that I want to combine. nice share
One bank statement takes up 20 tables and four pages in this document. I need to consolidate roughly thirty different bank statements that I have. Your video would be useful if I could only get the composite table, which I can't for some reason, and each of the tables or pages that I can get is missing some information.