With FME, Is it possible to extract a barcode from a PDF file and convert to text file?

Hi @asmarcus

Do you a example your case?

Thanks,

Danilo - Solutial

Hi @danilo_fme

For example: Imagine a energy bill (in PDF format), there is a barcode inside there, so a i need to check this and follow with the payment. But there are a lot of energy bills to check, from many corporations and differents layouts.

Is there any solution to do that? A transformer to identify the barcode or relative numbers and convert it into a XLS or text file?

Hi @asmarcus

I suggest you to use the transformer HTTPCaller to make a integration with a API for Barcode.

There is a API on this Link - you can check this documentation or anothers API's.

There is the option in Reader that is possible to extract all files dynamic from a folder.

Thanks,

Danilo

Hi @danilo_fme

Actually, I don't need to create a barcode. But I will try other solution.

Thanks!

Technically, yes, it is possible to read a barcode with FME. You would need an image of it and then... well you would need to analyze the width of each line and interpret the numbers. There are guides online to tell you what each thickness of line means. In FME I would try and clip it to the extents, and then clip out each section individually and test the cell values to see what each was.

Of course, that wouldn't be particularly simple. The easier solution would be to send the image to an API/web service that would read it and return the results. I'm sure there must be several of these services available. As mentioned, the HTTPCaller would be a good way to do that.

For example, here's one api that you might be able to use: https://developers.google.com/vision/android/barcodes-overview