Data Analysis Tool Review: Able2Extract Professional

Featured article by Angelica Germain, Independent Technology Author

Microsoft Excel continues to be the number one solution for analyzing data and preparing all sorts of charts that will best represent that data. However, the problem many data analysts and Excel users face today is that data comes in a myriad of file formats.

Before you can get started with any serious data analysis, you need to find a way to export your tables and other information to Excel. This is such a common demand that there is a running joke in Excel user communities:

“What is the most used feature in any business intelligence solution?” It is the Export to Excel button.

If you are looking for that magic button for your tables and information, here is the solution that can help: Able2Extract Professional. It is a renowned, full-blown PDF converter software that allows users to convert PDF to 12 editable file formats, including the popular MS Office formats you use daily. Other key features include:

– PDF editing: edit PDF content on the spot without the need for conversion or edit PDF pages by merging, splitting, moving, or rotating them.

– PDF form creation and filling: fill in, create and modify PDF forms instantly with popular form fields such as radio buttons, text fields, push buttons and checkboxes.

– PDF redaction: wipe out sensitive and confidential information from your files that you share with outside parties.

– PDF annotation: markup your PDFs using 12 annotation types, adding watermarks, inserting attachments, etc.

– PDF creation: convert to PDF any printable file and secure it with passwords to control how others use and view your documents, and more.

However, if you are a data analyst and a hard-core Excel user, here are top 4 ways Able2Extract Professional can help you:

Automatic and Custom PDF to Excel Conversion

As mentioned above, Able2Extract is distinguished by its PDF to Excel conversion option. It offers two different ways to export your PDF data into an Excel spreadsheet:

1. Automatic conversion: this is a standard option that quickly and accurately converts PDF to Excel. It is recommended for simple and clean PDF tables that you simple want to transfer into spreadsheets for further manipulation and analysis.

2. Custom PDF to Excel conversion: This is the option designed for messy, unorganized and complex PDFs that require tweaks and adjustments before you can get down to the business of data analysis. Using Able2Extract’s custom PDF to Excel conversion feature, you can modify your PDF content and preview your output before the actual conversion to Microsoft Excel. Basically, you get to add or remove rows or columns, manage named structures, adapt headers and footers, replot tables and more. All that before exporting your data to Excel. Using this feature will save you valuable time on cleaning and organizing your data in Excel.

Apart from this, even when using the Automatic PDF to Excel option you can instruct the software to convert ONLY tables from your PDF with a click of the mouse. This is useful when you want to convert PDF tables as they are but exclude the surrounding text. We all know that various PDF reports often include not only tabular data, but also some additional descriptive and explanatory text in between. So, when dealing with such complex PDF documents containing well organized tables that you want to extract into Excel, you can use this option (check out the screenshot below to see how easy it is to get Able2Extract to convert PDF tables only).

Convert Any Printable File to Excel

As ubiquitous as PDFs are, sometimes you get your data in some other format that is even trickier to export into an Excel spreadsheet than the PDF format. But as Able2Extract is obviously designed with the Excel user in mind, it allows users to convert any other printable format to Excel. You can even modify your Excel output using the custom convert to Excel option.

Convert PDF to CSV

Even though MS Excel is the go-to platform for many data analysts, most analysts will use some other data analysis solutions from time to time. Many of them will require data in the CSV format. If you find yourself in this situation, then you can use Able2Extract to transfer your PDF tables to CSV. PDF to CSV conversion option also allows for automatic and custom conversion; just like PDF to Excel.

Convert Scanned PDF to Excel and Other Formats 

The biggest nightmare of any PDF user are not native, electronically generated PDF files, but the ones that are created by scanning paper documents to PDF. The problem with these files are that they are images of text and data, nothing more. The content is basically unrecognizable without OCR technology. Fortunately, Able2Extract comes with the cutting-edge OCR technology you need for such PDFs. It automatically recognizes scanned (image) PDFs and performs the OCR without any instruction. In other words, even if you don’t know that you’re dealing with the scanned PDF, Able2Extract will figure it out for you and extract your data to Excel or other format with ease.

These would be our top 4 reasons for data analysts to at least try Able2Extract Professional. You can download Able2Extract here and try free for 7 days.