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Reuquen Boyett

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Aug 3, 2024, 4:17:32 PM8/3/24

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PDF time. A few weeks ago, I was asked by the Investintech team to review the latest release of Able2Extract, a versatile conversion softwaredesigned to transform PDF documents into a whole range of target formats, including Microsoft Office,OpenOffice, HTML and AutoCAD files, images, and more. I've done several review of this program in thepast, the last being Able2Extract 12. Here we go again.

There's a whole bunch of new, interesting features available. Version 14 comes with improvedOCR engine, supports Linux, plus it can also create PDF files rather than just convert them. Thismakes for a nice basket of options, and a solid test case. All right, let's see what gives.

This was fairly trivial. The installer does not ask any special questions. I was able to provide myPIN and license the software without any issues. The first thing you will immediately discover is thatAble2Extract launches with a popup dialog window, offering several quick tasks, including conversionand creation.

I started with the familiar task - and that's conversion. I loaded two PDF, my own Linux kernel crash book, and Shannon's A Mathematical Theory of Communication, anancient goldie that defined and set the standard for the modern Internet, back in 1948.

When I loaded my own book, I noticed the penguin image on the first page was all squashed. Not surewhy, but this wasn't a promising start. Now, this is different from what we had in the past - correctaspect ratio but no transparency. I wonder why this poses such a big problem.

Able2Extract supports many formats for the conversion. By default, you get Office stuff, HTML,AutoCAD, text and images. But you can also use OpenOffice formats (not specifically LibreOffice, mind),only you need to dig into the preferences to set those up. And by default, the program will alwaysrevert to Office rather than OpenOffice on every startup.

The conversion error is still there. If you do not have Microsoft Office installed, and you try anyone of the associated programs, you will see a rather ugly and dev-oriented error, which doesn't helpthe user in any way. Moreover, this message is quite unnecessary, because the program will continuewith the conversion. And in my case, it opened the created DOCX file in Word Viewer, so I'm not surewhat the fuss is all about. If anything, the error should be more graceful - or not there at all.

The conversion was about the same speed as before - and still single-core. Then, I looked at theDOCX files. Overall, I'm quite impressed with the results, earlier errors notwithstanding. With my PDF,the Tux image was back to its expected proportions - but no transparency. The fonts look a bit odd, butthis could be the lack of Computer Modern and Latin Modern fonts in the system. However, the table ofcontents, the text and the decorations were all top notch. Same with mathematical equations in theother work.

For an odd reason, Able2Extract 14 launched WordPad for the ODT file rather than LibreOffice - Iguess it was expecting OpenOffice - and the file conversion to this format was slower than DOCX. TheODT file also looked decidedly worse! I don't know there's the color variation in the text. Is thatmaybe only a rendering problem?

There's a lot more you can do. You have the ability to annotate the documents, there's batchconversion, and you can tweak the OCR engine, rotate the files, use encryption and digitalsignatures, and more. You won't necessarily need these tools and features if you're after casualconversions every now and then, but more serious or professional users will appreciate the options.Now, let's take a look at the far end of the PDF spectrum - not converting files from PDF but to.

A fresh addition to Able2Extract is the ability [sic] to create PDF documents. I tried this feature,to see what gives. Oddly, you need to use the Create button rather than the Open button. On that topic,Open allows you to select any file format, but the program will then complain. Why not just limit thetool to only supported formats?

Then, I hit another problem. It wouldn't convert the file - again, the Word thingie. Instead, itpointed me to using the installed distiller (PDF printer if you will) in whatever target program Iwanted to use. But that sort of misses the point of using an expensive program that has a lot of extrafeatures, does it not? And why should there be any importance to what software I have installed?

With an ODT file, things were better - but slow. At some point, the creation was stuck at 33% markfor a good five minutes, and I thought the whole thing had somehow frozen, but then the programcontinued and created a reasonable-quality PDF. Still, this whole area of use needs polishing.

Overall, I have mixed feelings about this particular release of Able2Extract. I like the extrastuff, but I think the integration isn't as good as it should be. On the positive side, the conversionquality seems to have improved a fair deal, albeit with strong and understandable bias toward MicrosoftOffice. On the negative side, the conversion errors remain, and while they don't detract from the finaloutput, they generate unnecessary noise.

The PDF creation feels rough. Too many errors, and the dependency on the software stack on theuser's machine limits the functionality of the program. Able2Extract 14 should work independently,because otherwise, it forces the user to have certain software, and that's a bit odd. If anything, thisisn't disclaimed or explained clearly enough. Furthermore, I'd like to see a better and more obviousseparation between different formats (specifically Microsoft Office versus OpenOffice), and LibreOfficesupport would be nice, too. Or other office suites, as well.

The full price of almost 150 dollars is also an important factor, so you need to have proper,professional needs to justify it. You can get a 30-day license, though, but that's still a non-trivialinvestment. All in all, this Able2Extract 14 deserves something like 6.5/10. Not bad, but the creationelement requires improvement, and I want the spurious error messages to go away, since they really harmthe experience, and for no good reason. And that would be all for today.

For instance, if you have a PDF file which was generated by AutoCAD and you need to convert it into an AutoCad file, Able2Extract Professional 11 is the solution to your problem. It does less esoteric conversions too. You can convert to Excel, Word, Powerpoint, HTML, CSV, and the aforementioned AutoCAD.

It does conversions well. Or at least, as well as can be expected. The product is not perfect, some of the conversions seem like voodoo and the results are perfect. Some of them need work, but I think the activity of converting the PDF file to any other format is bound to be a little bit of a hair-tearing out experience. And the product doesn't disappoint. It does some conversions beautifully and some of them were not ideal. You can help that process along and it requires some tinkering but I must admit that the act of taking a PDF of a spreadsheet and turning it into a CSV file is enough voodoo for me. I was impressed with the results of that exercise.

Sometimes you run into documents which have been scanned into the PDF format. By definition, these are more difficult to convert to anything usable. It is a good record to have but the documents themselves are not malleable. Able2Extract Professional 11 through its OCR engine is able to convert these kind of documents into workable formats which is voodoo of the highest order. Again, the process is easy, but the results vary and some of the results will leave you elated and some of them will be a tad frustrating.

Able2Extract Professional 11 gives you powerful edit tools to work on a PDF file. You get to modify the contents and also split or merge PDF documents. You can edit the text and make general changes to PDF files.

Able2Extract Professional 11 is not pretty. I am not sure it is trying to be. It is a product which is directed towards the business professional who needs to be able to work with PDF files. The interface is functional. It leads you through the tasks that you want to perform and it does it well.

Able2Extract Professional 11 is a professional tool directed towards a particular audience. If you need to handle PDF file creation, editing and conversions, it is a great tool to have in your toolset. It is efficient software geared towards fulfilling your need to conquer PDF files.

However, were always making improvements to the conversion algorithm. So, if youre consistently having issues with certain types of content in a PDF (lettering, format, font, etc.), please send in a sample to [email protected]. Our developers would be interested in taking a look.

Overall, I have been able to open pdfs and convert them to Word. That's it. I will continue to search for another software, since Adobe pretty much takes over the computer and all its apps and thus is not an option, before my renewal date.

I like the quick customer service, which was the reason I canceled a previous subscription from a company that took days to respond. The price point was roughly twice of that of the previous subscription, but I made it clear I was spending to get on-the-day assistance. I've gotten that. But the software does not work as it should, see below.

The main reason to purchase pdf software is to be able to edit and fill pdfs. This one *looks* like it will do what Adobe and others do, but it doesn't. When using the Enter Text function, it is not supple or productive. Changing the font is a mystery, the guide for the text entering function takes you to the field you want to enter, but it is not clear where the text will land so it is clunky and difficult to produce a professional result. Reaching out to support just yielded a tech who asked for the document then responded that he/she had no problem with it (I hate that). Investintech wants me to purchase a separate support subscription (not expensive) and I would, if the basic necessary functions worked better.