Hello Paul, You might try one of Wondershare's products -- either PDF Converter for Mac or PDF Converter Pro -- in trial mode. This is a kind of hokey answer, and I wouldn't want to purchase the product ($59.99 or $79.99 for Pro) unless they made some accessibility fixes to their interface. The conversion seems robust. What worked for me was using their trial downloads, which are limited to converting 5 pages, to convert from PDF to Rich Text Format. By default the conversion seems to go to Word (.docx) format, and those seemed to come out as gibberish for me. HTML worked, and then I tried the conversion to .rtf, which is probably what you will want to use.
Get one of the trial downloads of either PDF Converter for Mac or PDF Converter Pro from: http://www.wondershare.com/pdf-converter/mac/ If you use the web rotor set to links, and look for "Free trial", you'll get two sets of matches to the free trial downloads for the standard and pro versions: the first set are the standard and pro version links at the bottom of a feature comparison table, and the second set are the summary descriptions for the products with pricing, "trial" and "buy" links at the bottom of the page, again for the standard and pro versions. (The pro version adds OCR capability). The program starts up with a "Wondershare PDF Converter (Unregistered)" window with a scroll area that will populate with your selected files. To run the program use the "File" menu on the menu bar to "Add files" with the Command-L shortcut. Your selections get loaded into the scroll area of the Wondershare PDF Converter (Unregistered) window, and there's an unlabeled button outside the scroll area that runs the conversion. However, you can use the shortcuts from the "Convert" menu of Command-R to run or Command-Shift-R to cancel instead doing a VO-Space on that unlabeled button to run the program. For each file there is an initial "button" that can be pressed to Preview the PDF, and then for the currently selected file there's a second button you can press to specify the conversion format and page range. However, you can bypass this by pressing Command-F to use the "File Configuration" shortcut from the "File Menu" to bring up the dialog box with the same information. This lets you specify page range (defaults to "all", but you can customize by typing, for example "1,3,5-8" into the text box), and the format in the pop up menu (e.g. "Rich Text Format"). The check box for "Apply to all" lets you apply the format selection to all files you have loaded into the scroll area to date. Run the program with Command-R. Files with similar name but .rtf extension will be placed in the same directory as your selected file. If you choose HTML, then the converted file is always named index.html. This seems to work. There are paid versions in the Mac App Store, but if you only need to read your bills, you can just use the trial version, which limits you to 5 pages per document. I'll give you the App Store links: • PDF Converter http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pdf-converter/id414200948?mt=12 • PDF Converter Pro http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pdf-converter-pro/id422540826?mt=12 Sarah and others, the issue that Paul has hit is that the PDF versions of tables reads out of order: all the entries from column 1 then all the entries from column 2. Try printing a PDF version of a table you can read correctly on the web. When you use Preview or Skim the columns are read out of order. Using the "New TextEdit Window from Selection" service doesn't help: if you start from the HTML version, the TextEdit window will read the table in correct order, but if you start from the PDF version, the conversion in the TextEdit window will read the same way. I tried a few other converters that gave the same behavior. That's also why I tried converting to HTML, as well with this program. HTH. Cheers, Esther On Aug 3, 2012, at 9:51 AM, Sarah Alawami wrote: > I use an app called pdf to text. simply drag the file on to the app in the > apps folder and you have an rtf file on your desk top, I think. It's been a > while since I used it but it works for what I need it to. > > I'm unsure if it will do tables but it's worth a try. > On Aug 3, 2012, at 11:11 AM, Paul Hopewell <hopew...@hopewell.org.uk> wrote: > >> Hello, >> Is there anything in the Mac App store which will run on Mountain Lion and >> convert PDF documents containing tables into a form which can be read with >> VoiceOver? >> >> My bank provides my credit card statement as a PDF file only. It does not >> read correctly with Preview which displays each column in the table >> separately. Using Abbyyy fine reader to create a spreadsheet document does a >> slightly better job displaying the date and description in a table with >> separate columns but alas the amount is in a separate following table. >> >> So at present I have to start Windows XP under VMWare Fusion and use Adobe >> Acrobat to convert the PDF document into html which then enables Safari to >> correctly read the table. this is all very inconvenient so a Mac only >> solution would be much better. >> >> Any suggestions? >> >> Best regards.... >> >> Paul Hopewell <--- Mac Access At Mac Access Dot Net ---> To reply to this post, please address your message to mac-access@mac-access.net You can find an archive of all messages posted to the Mac-Access forum at either the list's own dedicated web archive: <http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/pipermail/mac-access/index.html> or at the public Mail Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/mac-access@mac-access.net/>. 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