PDF Screenshot in KNIME (Is it possible)

[trafalgarlaw]

Hello Everyone, may I ask if someone here have tried to automate the screenshot of PDF in KNIME? If yes, would love and appreciate if you could share it here. Thank you so much!

[trafalgarlaw]

Hello @takbb, just want to check if you’ve run through this one before. Appreciate your inputs a lot!

[takbb]

Hi @trafalgarlaw , thank you for vote of confidence in me

It’s not something I have looked at before, but can you describe more about your use case?

When you say “screenshot of PDF”, do you mean to have it open a pdf in some form of viewer/browser, and take a screenshot of a portion of it, and save that as an image file, or something else?

[trafalgarlaw]

Hello @takbb, thanks for replying! Yes something like PDF is saved in my folder then KNIME will get it then KNIME will take screenshot of what inside the first page of PDF then paste it in excel worksheet as KNIME output. Is it possible?

[iCFO]

PDF file to image

Hi Kolster, I came up with one potential solution using the Selenium Nodes (yes, I’m biased). The following workflow will load your PDF file in a web browser (I tested it with Chrome, Chromium, and Firefox on the Mac – as these all have an integrated PDF viewer) and then simply take a screenshot. It’s currently just a proof of concept, as I was interested whether this would be possible at all – and it works. [image] The workflow’s output will give you a table which contains the screenshot a…

This could be a starting point. It would require modification for local dues and using Selenium nodes now requires an annual fee.

[trafalgarlaw]

@iCFO thanks for this, would you know what extension is this one?

[trafalgarlaw]

For everyone, i hope also if someone can suggest without license or fee needed. Thank you!

[qqilihq]

@iCFO

using Selenium nodes now requires an annual fee.

^ It was always like this - since v1 in 2017

-Philipp

[iCFO]

Here is the extension.

Selenium Nodes for KNIME — NodePit

[iCFO]

I remembered using a few community available nodes a while back to to build a test workflow during early Covid, but I must have been using these before finding the paid bundle.

Web Interactions

[trafalgarlaw]

Have you seen a free node that can be used to screeshot a PDF file and save it in a excel worksheet? @iCFO

[iCFO]

The only one I have seen is that Selenium node. The annual license is very affordable for a single user, so it may be worth a pitch to request funding it? Especially if web automation opens up some new possibilities. I think there is a month trial that you could use to prove the viability.

That screenshot node is a very cool node idea though. Sorry that I can’t help on an open source solution.

[pgomez]

It sounds like you need a desktop automation tool, not a data processing tool like Knime.

Have you considered using something like Libre Automate (https://libreautomate.com/) or Microsoft Power Automate (Power Automate | Microsoft Power Platform)?