Converting Forms to Spreadsheets

Question: Is there an easy way to put a TIC form into a spreadsheet?

Answer: We have not found one. It is possible with Adobe's Reader (case A). It is easier with Acrobat 4 (case B). But we had to work one page at a time for each form.

Case A: You have only Adobe Acrobat Reader (which is free).

  1. Open the pdf file on the website; your browser will probably open it automatically with Reader. Go to any page of the form.
  2. (a) Make active the "text select tool" (click mouse on square button with a "T" on it).
    (b) Select entire form on that page (from the first line of the column titles through the last country code at the bottom of that page).
    (c) Copy that text.
  3. Go to a blank spreadsheet page and paste the text into a cell, say cell A2.
  4. You will see that each line of the form was copied into a row in the spreadsheet. The top rows are the column titles. You must move the column titles cell-by-cell into the proper columns and rows in the spreadsheet.
  5. The countries and their codes are correctly placed in the rows (almost).
  6. If some countries or their codes are missing, they are probably included with a column title. You may need to insert new rows for the missing countries and copy the names and codes into those rows.

Case B: You have Adobe Acrobat 4 (or Acrobat? Business Tools 4).

  1. Save the pdf file on the website to your harddrive; then open it in Acrobat 4 and go to any page of the form.
  2. Go to Adobe's "file, preferences, table/formatted text" and choose "table".
  3. (a) Make active the "table/formatted text select tool" (go to square button on left with a "T" on it; hold mouse button down to get menu; choose the "table...tool").
    (b) Select the entire form on that page by outlining it (put mouse pointer at the left upper corner of the form, hold down the mouse button, and move mouse pointer to the right bottom corner of the form).
    (c) Copy that "table" area.
  4. Go to a blank spreadsheet page and paste that "table" into a cell, say cell A2. The spreadsheet should look almost like the form.
  5. To finish, you may have to move some column titles. Also, if some countries or their codes are missing, they are probably included with a column title. You may need to insert new rows for the missing countries and copy the names and codes into those rows.

Revised 3/13/2001