UPDATED (SOLVED):
for anyone else who is trying to solve a similar problem, in the end I ran pdftops on the .pdf file, then ps2ascii on the .ps file and this gave me a .txt file I could handle in Perl.
In reply to PDF to Text by chrism01
| For: | Use: | ||
| & | & | ||
| < | < | ||
| > | > | ||
| [ | [ | ||
| ] | ] |