Recognizing Written Chart in PDF for Data Entry

Hi,

I have a pretty large set of PDFs (~400) which each contain a scanned copy of the same worksheet with hand written information filled in. I need to convert the handwritten data on these sheets into a spreadsheet, so I was hoping I could use Matlab to speed this process up.

In my head, Matlab would open a series of PDFs and display each one on the screen sequentially. I would then have to click points, check boxes, or enter numbers in an interface drawn over the pdf in Matlab.

There are two different kinds of data I would like to process.

1. Each worksheet contains a chart formatted as y: -10 to 120 / x: 125 to 8000. I would like matlab to recognize where the corners of the chart are on the page so that I can click the location of certain symbols (^,x,o,[,]) and have matlab know the numerical value of those data points for the spreadsheet.
2. Each worksheet contains several tables with the same headers, etc. I would like matlab to recognize those tables and overlay data entry fields so that I can run through those quickly.

I can provide examples of the chart, etc if needed. I've never done a project like this before, so I would really appreciate it if someone could point me towards some useful help pages to read.

Thanks, John

p.s. bonus points for anyone who can figure out what kind of data I'm working with.