PDF selectors disappear when openning file with start process activity

Help Studio
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1

I am trying to extract data from a PDF file. Somehow it looks that I get less selector options when I open the PDF by using the start process activity compared to when I open the file manually from File Explorer. Reading options are equal. The situation is re-produceable.
Do you have an idea how this could come?

2

Hello @fzi1,

From my point of view, to avoid the problems with PDF selectors, I recommend to use the read PDF text with Uipath PDF activities and use some string manipulation methods (like substring) to retrieve the information you want.
Also, regex is a very good option to retrieve the necessary information from pdf files.

Vasile.

3

Hi Vasile,
Thank you for your quick response!
Sure, the Read PDF Text activity would be an option. However, the design of the PDF is not really optimal for using regex & co. Also from a technical perspective, I really would like to understand the difference of starting a PDF manually and get all selectors you could whish vs. starting the same PDF via UiPath and suddenly get different selectors. How can that come? What I am doing wrong?
BR, fzi1