Combining multiple tables from one PDF / columns not aligning despite being identically formatted

[thedogspollocks]

Hi all,

I'm currently using the following formula to combine a table across multiple pages:

= let Source = Pdf.Tables(File.Contents("C:\DIRECTORY\FILENAME.pdf"), [StartPage=24, EndPage=29])in Source

This produces the following, misaligned results:

Is there a way to correct this, or would I need, perhaps, to make some edits to the PDF.. which I can do, but it would be perhaps more time consuming. 

Here is the formatting of the table from which the above data is derived:

Thanks for any help. 

[Ehren]

If you can share an anonymized/sanitized sample file, we can look into why the columns on each page are not recognized as being aligned.

[watkinnc · Accepted solution]

Any time you are combining PDFs, you need to get the column count while the tables are still collapsed, like Table.AddColumn(PriorStepOrTableName, "Columns", each Table.ColumnCount([TableColumnName]))

Then sort descending by column count, and only then should you expand the tables.

Anyway, the automatic column splitting is not perfect. Also, keep one of your original columns when you expand the table column--so you can put the expanded tables back in the right order if your PDF data has no sort data.

--Nate