How to create knowledge articles from PDF content? (PDF not as attachment)

[Anish Reghu]

Hi all,

How to parse the contents from a PDF and create articles from it? Is it possible?

NOTE - The requirement is not to attach the PDF into the article.

Regards,

Anish

[Lauren Methena]

Hi, Anish! Check out these recent threads that cover this topic.

For ServiceNow, you have a couple of options:

1. Upload PDF and import it into ServiceNow. (Formatting usually doesn't stay the way you want it when you do this, particularly with tables and images.)

2. Convert PDF to Word and import the Word doc. (You'll have the same issues with formatting, particularly charts and images.)

3. Do some copy/pasting with the text; import the images (if any exist) into the Media Library and then insert the images into your article - don't copy/paste them into your article. 

This last method seems to be the agreed upon best method, even though it is more laborious. 

This is because you can better control the coding on the back end (keep your HTML clean - which will make it easier to edit in the future) and you can better control the formatting.

These threads sort of go over a lot of the how-to and they why. I also offer some how-to guides in these threads:

Best way to import PPT files (applies to Word and PDF, too)

Discussion about importing bulk files (read through all the replies - good discussion)

There are probably other related threads, too. This topic comes up a lot in forums, because there's just no easy way to import lots of knowledge at once and have it come out clean formatting-wise. If you take the time to import articles correctly, your articles look great, they function great, and you can edit them more easily without your code breaking later on. 

If you just import stuff up into ServiceNow, you'll spend as much time fixing it later as you would have if you just used the copy/paste method to begin with. (Assuming you guys are wanting to stick with some sort of consistent formatting. If you don't care how it looks and you just want it up there, importing may work for you.)

Good luck! Please mark helpful or correct, if you find it so. 🙂 Let me know what follow up questions you have.

-Lauren

[Anish Reghu]

Thanks, guess I got my answer, but will keep the thread open for sometime to check if I am getting any other responses. If not, I will consider this as my go to option in couple of days.

[Anish Reghu]

How about converting the PDF into XML content and then import it into ServiceNow? Still it will have formatting issues?

[Lauren Methena]

That is a great question. We have not played with XML content, so it might be worth testing to see how it turns out - and then please report back to let us all know what the outcome was! 

My only personal hesitation in using XML would be:

• It seems to rely on being linked back to a file, so you may run into issues there.
• XML is not standard, according to a few articles I read, and relates more to sharing files. (I'm I'm understanding right.)
• You need to have a higher understanding of coding to get it to work. (Something my team and I do not have but perhaps your team is better suited to it.

Here are some articles I found related to XML and documents, including something from ServiceNow.

Developer blog on using XML

SN Product Documentation about configuring content

Control request and response type (not sure if this is related, but the coding tips looked like they may come in handy)

I found these through Google search. I would try researching to see what others have done and then maybe do some testing - and then let us know how it turns out for you! Would be great to know if there are other effective methods for uploading articles!

Good luck!

-Lauren