There are many times when you might find yourself looking at a PDF document and thinking, “I need this in a different format”. While there are some decent PDF converters online, all seem to fail when it comes to processing more complicated documents. Not to worry though, there is a better solution.

Meet Able2Extract PDF converter, by Investintech PDF solutions. According to the company, 90% of Fortune 500 companies use this product to some capacity. That sounds pretty stellar; however, the website does not list exactly whom among the 500 use the converter.

Nevertheless, I decided to take the converter for a spin. As a courtesy, Ana Stanojevic of InvestInTech.com allowed me to try the full version for free. After a thorough 6 month testing period, here’s what I found.

Accuracy of conversion

The foremost priority for any X to Y converter is the accuracy of conversion. How well does the converted document resemble the original?

Able2Extract supports conversion of PDFs and Text files. I tested several of each, and picked a representative document for each the PDF and Text file conversions.

PDF to other formats

Since most PDF converters fail with complex documents, I decided to convert my resume, originally written in TeX and exported to PDF. Here are the results.

Each link (Result) provides a direct download to the conversion result.

PDF to Word: This conversion was very accurate, preserving the layout of the original document to a great extent. A few minor details, such as bullet points not being rendered as bullet points can be seen upon closer inspection. For a complicated document like this, I have not seen a better conversion. As most people will be converting PDF to Word, Able2Extract does a fantastic job. Result.

PDF to Excel: I wasn’t expecting much with this conversion anyways, and the result isn’t that great. This is understandable for a resume; who would want to send a prospective employer their resume in Excel format? At the very least, this conversion preserves most of the data, and is readable. Compared to a free PDF to Excel converter (e.g. https://www.pdftoexcelonline.com/), Able2Extract wins hands-down. Result.

PDF to HTML: Upon opening the HTML document in the browser, it did look a whole lot like I had just opened Adobe Reader in the browser. The conversion accuracy was however, impressive. Apart from the whole document being way too small, the links were preserved, the colors were intact, and the layout was perfect. Looking at the internal HTML and CSS markup revealed a messy tangle of inline styles and selectors, but that won’t matter much to the average user. Result.

PDF to Text: To get this option, you actually have to go to File->Convert to Text, since it’s not available in the bar at the top. But who wants to convert a nicely structured PDF to .txt anyway? Nevertheless, I gave it a shot, expecting nothing decent.

Strangely enough, when I opened the Text Document, it looked like Able2Extract attempted to replicate the tabular layout with tabs. This may not be the best option for a text document, but at the very least, the converter preserves the data. Result.

PDF to PowerPoint: The conversion result resembles that of the HTML conversion, as all the content fits on one slide. Style and content are both preserved very well, albeit with the copious use of tab indenting. This may make it hard to edit the file without messing up alignments, but keep in mind that PDFs were not designed to be editable in the first place. Result.

PDF to Publisher: Like the other Microsoft Office conversion results, all content is on one page. The conversion result for Publisher is marginally better than that of the PowerPoint. Result (external link).

PDF to AutoCAD: I was not able to test this one, as I did not have a CAD application. When I tried to download a CAD viewer, it did not open the file. However, architects and designers who use AutoCAD may like to convert PDFs to editable .dwg or .dxf files so they can keep editing them. Result.

PDF to OpenOffice: This conversion is actually 3 options: Writer (“Word”), Impress (“PowerPoint”), and Calc (“Excel”). While the Microsoft Office suite is able to open up the corresponding Open Document formats, the document rendering is not very accurate. To this end, the test results for these are inconclusive. Result (.odp), Result (.ods), Resume (.odt).

HTML to other formats

Contrary to their website, Able2Extract does not convert from HTML files!

Text to other formats

To test this, I used the entire text of Shakespeare’s play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and tested its conversion to various formats. As .txt files are by far simpler in file structure than the other formats, I expected the results to be absolutely perfect.

Text to Excel: This is one of those “who the hell would use that” conversions, but it works! Basically, the conversion is one row in Excel per one line of text, and the conversion results in monospaced font used in Excel to emulate the text document. Additionally with the custom conversion, you can add or remove column breaks. Result.

Text to Word: You can already open up .txt files in Word, but Able2Extract has a converter for it anyways. The page size of the conversion result is a bit bizarre, being 10.67″ x 11″. But all the text is there, in its mono-spaced glory.The awkward page size, however, leaves a ton of whitespace on the edge that could cause problems while printing. You’re better off leaving the file as .txt. Result.

Text to HTML: Once again, you can open plaintext files in the browser with no conversion whatsoever. The conversion stylizes the text file so that it resembles Adobe Reader in the browser, which is totally unnecessary. But in the rare case that you’ll need this conversion, it is reliable, and preserves the content well. Result.

Overall score for conversions: 8.5/10. The bottom line is that your data is preserved, even with the most bizarre conversions you can think of. For more popular conversions, Able2Extract far outperforms the free converters available online.

Formats

Most of the time, users want PDF to Word conversion. For those who demand more, however, Able2Extract can convert from and to the following document formats:

Source: Able2Extract website

source \ destination	Excel	Word	HTML	Text	PowerPoint	Publisher	Autocad	Open Office
PDF	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
HTML	✓	✓	✓	✓
Text	✓	✓	✓	✓

Note however, the current version of the converter does not support HTML file conversion. It is up to speculation whether they will support it in a future release.

Overall score for formats: 10/10.

User Interface

Unlike many other programs, Able2Extract’s UI looks as if it were built in its own operating system. The look of the UI is not that great, but looks better on Linux and Mac machines.

Aside from the awkward look, however, all the functionality is there. You can view documents like you would in Adobe Reader, as it has sort of the Adobe Reader UI built in. The toolbar allows for quick conversion to different file types, and the menu bar is nicely organized.

Overall score: 7.5/10. The UI could be visually improved, but other than that, it’s fairly easy to use.

Free vs. Paid

Free version: The quality of your conversion will not be affected by whether you purchase the product or not. You have 7 days to try the product, and only 3 pages per conversion are allowed at maximum. However, for users looking for a one-time solution, this may be enough.

Paid version: The software license for the paid version is $99, for individual use. You can buy licenses for multiple users on their website. The $99 per license may be suitable for those who use PDF conversion on a daily basis, and require accurate, fast results.

Another word of note: On the product website, it claims that the product is licensed by 90% of the Fortune 500 companies. However, they do not list which companies, although the testimonials seem compelling.

Overall score: 8/10. The biggest thing when it comes to document conversion is the quality, and it’s wonderful that A2E’s trial version is representative of the quality you’ll get with the full version. However, their free version restrictions and high price of the paid version may turn off some users from using the product.

Bugs?

Through my testing, I found one serious bug — Able2Extract is unable to handle large PDF documents. At one point, I wanted to convert a 469-page document, 7.65 MB, but it crashed after a few minutes of trying to load the document.

This could be a serious problem for those who need to convert large PDFs. A possible solution is to break up the PDF into several documents with an external application, and do a batch conversion.

Besides this crash, the program is very well-written, and should be bug-free for most usage.

Overall

9/10, for its remarkable conversion abilities, but a rather lackluster UI. This PDF converter is definitely geared towards individuals who need to convert PDFs on a daily basis. You won’t find anything like Able2Extract on a free website.

Product website: http://www.investintech.com/able2extract.html. Free version and paid ($99) version