Base64 format of pdf file from Azure Data Factory

Question

I am using Azure data factory to read a pdf file from a storage blob container and then convert it to base64 format using a Web activity. This is required to pass the base64 format to an API. Although the base64 value returned by the Web activity consists of random garbage text and does not match with the value from https://base64.guru/converter/encode/pdf

Base64 From ADF Web activity

Base64 from https://base64.guru/converter/encode/pdf

I have tried following Headers, also "Accept" : "application/octet-stream" but same end result.

Is there any other way to read a pdf via Data Factory.

Appreciate any help on this.

Regards,

Avinash

Answer 1

@Avinash Pai

Thanks for the question and using MS Q&A platform.

I understand that you’re trying to read a PDF file from Azure Blob Storage and convert it to base64 format using Azure Data Factory (ADF). However, you’re encountering an issue where the base64 value returned by the Web activity doesn’t match the expected value.

One possible reason for this issue is that the PDF file is not being read correctly from the blob storage. PDF files are binary files, and they need to be read in binary mode to ensure that the contents are not corrupted.

Unfortunately, as of now, ADF does not support the PDF format. ADF can get metadata about your files, no matter the format, but it does not include image manipulation tools, and does not do more than move or compress/uncompress that type of unstructured data.

However, there might be a workaround. Azure Synapse Analytics, which contains the functionality of Data Factory, allows for a much more free-form workload. For example, you could find a library/module for the base64 conversion to employ in a Spark notebook. You could tell the workbook to load the file, do the transformation, and write back to blob. This does require some level of comfort with writing code.

Hope this helps. Do let us know if you any further queries.

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