More pdf2kmymoney

[pjfarley3 at earthlink.net]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: KMyMoney <kmymoney-bounces at kde.org> On Behalf Of Jack
> Sent: Wednesday, December 30, 2020 6:21 PM
> To: kmymoney at kde.org
> Subject: Re: More pdf2kmymoney
> 
<Snipped>
> > You have to help them by providing a suitable script (awk / perl
> > whatever)
> > to get this done.-----------------------------------
> > I unfortunately, have no such script. I am assuming it would need to
> > be configurable.As I said if anyone has such a script, bring it
> > on.....Aaron
>
> I'm working on a longer response, but saying it would have to be
> "configurable" is a massive understatement.  Every bank has its own
> format for PDF statements, and even those are subject to change with no
> warning, notice, or logic.  You would likely have to have a separate
> script/program (or at least a module, plugin, or sub-script) for each
> bank.  I suppose some amount of interactive configurability might be
> possible (similar to what KMM already does for importing csv files) to
> find where the data begins and ends and what the columns are.  However,
> designing it would require samples of many banks' statements - and I
> suspect those are pretty hard to obtain from users, as they always
> contain personal information.

Exactly.  It took me much trial-and-error programming to get just my own
bank's statements processed.  Another issue I ran into is that my bank
sometimes puts custom fonts into the PDF (not every month, but sometimes for
months at a time) that pdftotext can't translate (I think the pdftotext
error message is something like "Invalid font detected") and if the output
text is not examined carefully you can find that actual transaction data was
missed.

And I still have to keep customizing it every now and then when the bank
changes the format of something in the statement.  They are not required to
tell us when they do that kind of thing, the statements they give you just
have to be readable by a human being and follow all the banking and consumer
protection laws.

A far better solution is to see f your bank website offers "transaction
downloads" separately from the PDF statement download.  Citibank USA does
this, and it is already in CSV format when downloaded.  On the Citibank USA
website it can be fond by traversing the menus "Services/Banking
Services/Financial Tools/Transactions".

If your bank does not offer such a service you will need technological
skills in at least one scripting language to process a text version of your
bank's PDF statement.  There is just no getting around that requirement.

Universally provided OFX access for your banking needs (or a commonly
supported derivative thereof) would be the best answer, but that's got about
two chances of happening - slim and none - at least here in the US.  As I
see it now, Europe and probably Asia will be way ahead of the US in that
area for quite a long time.

HTH

Peter