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I had selected a matrix in a PDF file,

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and paste it onto my MMA notebook. Below is the exact copy-pasted content:

0.9034 "NAN" 0.7163 0.8588
0.3031 0.5827 0.2699 0.8063
0.0418 0.8426 "NAN" 0.8634
"NAN" 0.8913 0.0662 0.8432

I want to display this content in the matrix form as shown in the original PDF. Thankfully there was no distortion when the content was transferred; however, the white spaces now became implied multiple signs in MMA.

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My solution

1) Convert content to string by simply wrapping it in ""

2) I then ran into the problem of the "NAN"'s becoming apart from the overall string due to its being wrapped by a pair of "" previously. I couldn't find a quick way to assimilate them back into the larger string but to manually modify them (by adding a pair of \'s such that "NAN" became \"NAN\": ref)

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3) Use StringSplit twice, first to split the string at each line break "\n" to create 4 "lines"/sublists, and then map it the second time to each line at the "," to create separate elements for each line.

StringSplit[#, {" "}] & /@ StringSplit[%, "\n"]
(* {{"0.9034", "\"NAN\"", "0.7163", "0.8588"}, {"0.3031", "0.5827", 
  "0.2699", "0.8063"}, {"0.0418", "0.8426", "\"NAN\"", 
  "0.8634"}, {"\"NAN\"", "0.8913", "0.0662", "0.8432"}} *)

4) Replace each "\"NAN\"" with a simple "NAN"

% /. "\"NAN\"" :> "NAN"
(* {{"0.9034", "NAN", "0.7163", "0.8588"}, {"0.3031", "0.5827", "0.2699",
   "0.8063"}, {"0.0418", "0.8426", "NAN", "0.8634"}, {"NAN", "0.8913",
   "0.0662", "0.8432"}} *)

Sidestep: I tried to do this step more generally (since the string enclosed by \" might be more varied in future cases), by doing this:

% /. "\""~~x___~~"\"" :> x

This did not work, probably because ReplaceAll couldn't handle more complex string replacements (e.g. involving blanks). As a result, I tried StringReplace, and it worked as expected:

Map[StringReplace[#, "\"" ~~ x___ ~~ "\"" :> x] &, %, {2}]
(* {{"0.9034", "NAN", "0.7163", "0.8588"}, {"0.3031", "0.5827", "0.2699",
   "0.8063"}, {"0.0418", "0.8426", "NAN", "0.8634"}, {"NAN", "0.8913",
   "0.0662", "0.8432"}} *)

One-step summary

Map[StringReplace[#, "\"" ~~ x___ ~~ "\"" :> x] &, 
  StringSplit[#, {" "}] & /@ StringSplit["0.9034 \"NAN\" 0.7163 0.8588
    0.3031 0.5827 0.2699 0.8063
    0.0418 0.8426 \"NAN\" 0.8634
    \"NAN\" 0.8913 0.0662 0.8432", "\n"], {2}] // MatrixForm

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My question is:

Could anyone help me think of a more elegant/efficient way to get the same result? The greatest bottleneck, I think, is the manual adding of \'s, so I'd love to hear how you can do that programmatically.

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    $\begingroup$ I believe this question is a duplicate. Some options and/or related: (8997), (21951), (41280). My preferred method is still Szabolcs's Paste Tabular palette. $\endgroup$
    – Mr.Wizard
    Commented Jul 22, 2014 at 19:13

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
5
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ImportString is all you need, as demonstrated below:

Insert copied matrix.

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    $\begingroup$ I hate you so much >:[ +1 $\endgroup$
    – khanhnguyendata
    Commented Jul 22, 2014 at 18:30
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    $\begingroup$ and BTW my life would have been much easier had I chosen to type in a " first before pasting the content from the PDF (in order to prompt MMA to process it). $\endgroup$
    – khanhnguyendata
    Commented Jul 22, 2014 at 18:32
  • $\begingroup$ @seismatica Haha, yep. $\endgroup$
    – C. E. ♦
    Commented Jul 22, 2014 at 18:32
  • $\begingroup$ Nice. I've seen videos on here before. How do you make them? $\endgroup$
    – Mike Honeychurch
    Commented Jul 22, 2014 at 23:11
  • $\begingroup$ @MikeHoneychurch I use LICEcap, I think most do. There are other alternatives discussed here. $\endgroup$
    – C. E. ♦
    Commented Jul 22, 2014 at 23:19

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