The last time we looked at Able2Extract, it was Able2Extract version 7, and we found it to be “well worth a look when you need to convert a file”. The company behind the product, Investintech.com, recently released version 8 which is what we’ll be looking at in this review.

Convert PDF Files To Office

Able2Extract is a PDF Converter that can convert Adobe Acrobat PDF files for viewing and editing in Microsoft Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Publisher, and Autodesk AutoCAD. It can also convert PDF files to a number of other formats including HTML, Image (BMP, JPG, PNG, GIF, TIFF), and Open Office formats (ODT Text Document, ODP Presentation, and ODS Spreadsheet).

PDF, or Portable Document Format, is a file format created by Adobe designed to be compact enough for sharing. To read files created in the PDF format you need a PDF viewer, available for free from the Adobe website, but many modern applications include built-in support for the PDF format.

PDF is typically a one-way deal

The portability of the PDF format makes it useful for sharing files and for, typically, making them non-editable (although the PDF format has evolved considerably from its origins). However, one of the big drawbacks of PDF files is those times when you really need to extract your master document and its information, as it was originally designed, which is difficult for a one-way medium.

Fortunately, tools have evolved over time to handle the conversion of PDF to more useful formats and Able2Extract is one of the better ones.

Version 8 New Features

New features of Able2Extract version 8 include:

• Cross Platform Compatibility – Version 8 is now available on Windows, Mac and Linux (Fedora and Ubuntu) and what is a neat touch is that you can buy the license once and switch, as you choose, between any of the three platforms.
• Custom Conversion Interface for PDF to Excel – Users can now preview and manually designate row/columns prior to PDF conversion
• Improved OCR capabilities (Professional version only) – Version 8 can fix and better convert poor quality PDF scanned text
• New Interface – A new navigation side panel and tabbed view

With regard to the new features the most immediate difference is the interface. It feels a lot cleaner, more optimised, and more organised.

Version 8 PDF Converter In Operation

There are three steps to the process of converting a PDF to a usable file format. Step 1, load a PDF into Able2Extract. Step 2, choose an area to convert (or select All) and hold down the Control key to select multiple areas. Step 3, select the resulting format.

Depending on the format you select there may be additional options. For example, Excel conversion includes two paths: Automatic and Custom (Custom allows you to manipulate headers/footers, add/delete tables, and split columns). Choosing an Image format allows you to select the image format type, adjust the quality (where relevant), and set the resulting image size and resolution. The AutoCAD format allows you to select DWG or DXF format, colour palette type (AutoCAD 2000, AutoCAD 2004), set the units and polyline width, and set the scale and insertion points.

Able2Extract includes features for zooming and rotating files and also provides view features specifically for Excel: Excel Fonts, Spacing, and Single Worksheet mode. You can also define custom templates for similarly formatted Excel files so once you define a set of custom conversion options just save them as a Custom Template. Next time, you can open the custom template and automatically apply the conversion settings.

The Batch Conversion feature allows you to specify a group of files, a target conversion format, and destination folder, however you cannot set custom settings on individual files. Once started the batch conversion process can be left to automatically convert the files.

Able2Extract performed almost flawlessly

Able2Extract performed almost flawlessly in the tests we threw at it – and we threw quite a few. We tried PDFs with tabulated data going into Excel. We exported files to various image formats and also tried complex PDF documents into Word and HTML. We even managed to get editable slides into PowerPoint. We didn’t test it out with AutoCAD so if you have we would appreciate your feedback.

There were a couple of issues, for example, Able2Extract had trouble with alpha levels for transparency and also struggled a bit with layered text (and often got confused between the letters “h” and “t”). However, Able2Extract brought across the “meat” of the PDF into a format which could be edited. This alone could save a great deal of time.

Able2Extract is available online for USD 99.95 as a full license (around £61.40), or USD 34.95 (around £21.47) for a 30-day subscription. A Free Trial is also available so you can try the software out before you buy.

For more information head over to Investintech.com: Able2Extract PDF Converter 8.