You can try one of the precompiled binaries from XPDF. For windows, I downloaded and installed PDFtoTEXt utility from xpdf-3.02pl1-win32.zip.

http://www.foolabs.com/xpdf/download.html

PDFtoText. Use -layout switch to 'perserve original layout'. You can view a small help file in a CMD window by typing PDFtoTEXT -help in the directory where you installed the application. Using this method produces a space deliminated file. Quality of output is not 100% correct. Requires verifying your data. 6'x and 8'x, 1's and I's can get mixed up, as an example.

I forget which programmers first gave me the tip on to this free software, but it was here on the 'L'. Good luck.

On Mon, 27 Jul 2009 12:13:03 -0400, Kevin Viel <citam.sasl@GMAIL.COM> wrote:

>I have a number of PDF files of moderate size from a report. I create a >text file using the "Save as Text" in Adobe Reader. It did not preserve >columns. The unfortunate layout of one file is tabular, with three fields >per column. If a value is missing, after the conversion, I am stuck with a >shift, so that I do not know to what variable a value goes. > >Would the use of PDF2ASCII in GhostScript preserve the columnar nature of >these data? > >Thanks, > >Kevin > >PS Adobe is lauded, but locking up data from computers seems to be very, >very short-sighted....