Able2Extract Professional

Able2Extract a top pick for capturing tabular PDF data; OCR OK

Quick and accurate, this software handles most PDF-to-spreadsheet conversions and has fair OCR.

Thanks to its ability to define custom tables, Able2Extract is one of the best options we've found for converting PDFs to spreadsheets - especially for the price. It can even handle tricky documents that stump other programs and comes complete with decent OCR.

The OCR technology used by Able2Extract is both reliable and effective on simple tasks, although it was quite slow processing larger collections of PDFs. Our toughest document, a PDF with some converted text, also stumped the software completely.

It's ability to convert PDFs to Excel, however, is Able2Extract's standout feature. It's even easy to use (see our tutorial). Simply open the PDF, select what you want to convert and click on the Excel button to complete the process. There's even great documentation and options to get additional help from the company via social media.

While the automatic options works for simpler, straightforward PDFs, the custom option is what sets Able2Extract apart.

Users can draw and move their own row and column lines or use specific table areas as a key. The option helps tackle tables with tricky formatting, like wrapped text and separated headings.

No other PDF tool we've tested has this custom feature for this price point, which keeps it at the low end of the product range (and even some higher-end software doesn't have it).

Able2Extract won't do it all though, as our embedded font document showed.

While it doesn't completely eliminate the need for data cleanup, it certainly will minimize such work. The time you'll save not having to play around on free converter websites is worth the price tag alone.