Read_PDF generating single item list

When using the tabula.read_pdf for an online pdf files, I expected a dataframe output but seemed to receive a list with the entire table data as one item in the list.

Check list before submit

• [ x] Did you read FAQ?

• [x ] (Optional, but really helpful) Your PDF URL: https://www.nar.realtor/sites/default/files/documents/ehs-03-2020-overview-2020-04-21.pdf

• [x ] Paste the output of import tabula; tabula.environment_info() on Python REPL: ?

    3.7.4 (default, Aug  9 2019, 18:34:13) [MSC v.1915 64 bit (AMD64)]
Java version:
    java version "1.8.0_251"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.8.0_251-b08)
Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (build 25.251-b08, mixed mode)
tabula-py version: 2.1.0
platform: Windows-10-10.0.18362-SP0
uname:
    uname_result(system='Windows', node='SENE01-VM02', release='10', version='10.0.18362', machine='AMD64', processor='Intel64 Family 6 Model 63 Stepping 2, GenuineIntel')
linux_distribution: ('', '', '')
mac_ver: ('', ('', '', ''), '') 

If not possible to execute tabula.environment_info(), please answer following questions manually.

• Paste the output of python --version command on your terminal: ?
• Paste the output of java -version command on your terminal: ?
• Does java -h command work well?; Ensure your java command is included in PATH
• Write your OS and it’s version: ?

What did you do when you faced the problem?

I tried to manually convert the tabula.read_pdf() output as a DataFrame via pd.DataFrame(output) but the ouput was a single cell df that showed truncated part of the first text extracted from the pdf. (‘Unnam…’). Tried searching StackOverflow for similar issues but did not find any.

Code:

import tabula
df = tabula.read_pdf()("https://www.nar.realtor/sites/default/files/documents/ehs-03-2020-overview-2020-04-21.pdf")
print(df)

## output not as expected, used pd.DataFrame() in attmept to achieve df expected
df2 = pd.DataFrame(df)

Expected behavior:

Expected a table output similar to the examples provided on GitHub. https://github.com/chezou/tabula-py/blob/master/examples/tabula_example.ipynb

Actual behavior:

A single cell dataframe that doesn’t display any data as expected via the examples provided in the linked GitHub example python notebook.

Related Issues:

[chezou]

I couldn’t find any issue. As of tabula-py 2.0.0, read_pdf() returns a list of DataFrames. You can find an actual DataFrame with df[0] for example.

fname = "https://www.nar.realtor/sites/default/files/documents/ehs-03-2020-overview-2020-04-21.pdf"
>>> df = tabula.read_pdf(fname)
'pages' argument isn't specified.Will extract only from page 1 by default.
Got stderr: Jun 04, 2020 11:19:49 AM org.apache.pdfbox.pdmodel.font.FileSystemFontProvider loadDiskCache
WARNING: New fonts found, font cache will be re-built
Jun 04, 2020 11:19:49 AM org.apache.pdfbox.pdmodel.font.FileSystemFontProvider <init>
WARNING: Building on-disk font cache, this may take a while
Jun 04, 2020 11:19:53 AM org.apache.pdfbox.pdmodel.font.FileSystemFontProvider <init>
WARNING: Finished building on-disk font cache, found 870 fonts

>>> df
[                                           Unnamed: 0      Unnamed: 1                       Unnamed: 2               Unnamed: 3  ... Unnamed: 10 Unnamed: 11 Unnamed: 12    Mos.
0                                                Year            U.S.                        Northeast                  Midwest  ...        West         NaN  Inventory*  Supply
1                                                2017      5 ,510,000                         7 40,000                1,300,000  ...           *         NaN   1,460,000     3.9
2                                                2018      5 ,340,000                         6 90,000                1,270,000  ...           *         NaN   1,530,000     4.0
3                                                2019      5 ,340,000                         6 90,000                1,250,000  ...           *         NaN   1,390,000     3.9
...snip...


[43 rows x 14 columns]]
>>> len(df)
1
>>> df[0]
                                           Unnamed: 0      Unnamed: 1                       Unnamed: 2               Unnamed: 3  ... Unnamed: 10 Unnamed: 11 Unnamed: 12    Mos.
0                                                Year            U.S.                        Northeast                  Midwest  ...        West         NaN  Inventory*  Supply
1                                                2017      5 ,510,000                         7 40,000                1,300,000  ...           *         NaN   1,460,000     3.9
2                                                2018      5 ,340,000                         6 90,000                1,270,000  ...           *         NaN   1,530,000     4.0
3                                                2019      5 ,340,000                         6 90,000                1,250,000  ...           *         NaN   1,390,000     3.9
...snip...
[43 rows x 14 columns]

[clarakheinz]

Ah, I see I missed the indexing piece. Thank you both so much for clearing that up.