PDF Table Extractor

Extract text-based tables from user-provided or approved public PDFs into structured rows.

What this Actor does

Return detected columns and rows with page numbers, source URLs, confidence, and parse warnings.

• Extract tables from reports, invoices, schedules, price lists, and registers.
• Preserve page and source evidence.
• Prepare detected rows for JSON or CSV export.

Who this is for

Data operations teams, Analysts, Automation builders.

Input

• Demo mode is the safe default and emits one deterministic fixture.
• Live mode processes at most maxItems configured inputs.
• startUrls: user-provided or approved public URLs.

Output

The default dataset uses the Actor-specific schema in .actor/DATASET_SCHEMA.json. Key fields include documentName, pageCount, detectedTables, columns, rows, pageNumbers, extractionMethod, validationErrors, plus exact source, status, delta, confidence, warning, and fixture/live labels.

Data sources

• APIFY-DATASETS

This is the registered catalog source ID. Live inputs may also include buyer-provided or explicitly approved public PDF URLs; buyer inputs are not registered source IDs.

Demo run

Run examples/first-run.json. The row in examples/sample-output.json is labeled sourceStatus: fixture, isDemo: true, and is not live evidence.

Live-run behavior

Live mode processes only the configured Actor-specific inputs. Failures are returned as diagnostics or explicit errors; the runtime does not silently substitute unrelated source families.

Pricing

The runtime reads the effective Apify pay-per-event map after Actor.init() and writes each buyer-visible dataset record through the verified document-parsed event, including the already scheduled pricing-record transition. It stops with an explicit configuration-drift error instead of emitting unmetered output. This package never defines or changes provider pricing.

Identity and visibility safety

This package targets only zentrafoundry/pdf-table-extractor with Actor ID mOKkMoxhQAOrY9XG8. Any future release must find exactly one authenticated inventory match and abort on identity or visibility drift. Creating, cloning, upserting, duplicating, drafting, or privatizing the Actor is forbidden.

Limitations

• The runtime extracts embedded PDF text and does not claim OCR for image-only documents.
• Complex merged cells and visual-only table layouts may require review or a separately approved adapter.
• Local tests and fixtures do not prove an Apify build, live run, Store content update, or Store readback.

Responsible use

Use only data you are authorized to process. Respect source terms, robots policies, privacy rules, and applicable law. Never place credentials, cookies, tokens, or private account data in URLs or logs.

Support

When reporting a problem, include the run ID, sanitized input shape, expected result, and observed result. Do not include secrets or private data.