Data Extraction from PDF Tools: Tabula vs ByteScout PDF Multitool

PDF (Portable Document Format) is a document format independent of the system’s hardware and software and can be opened on any system using designated software.

However, unlike Microsoft Word and other word processing software, it is extremely cumbersome to extract desired information such as figures and tables from PDF documents. Special software has been developed which allows users to extract information from PDF documents.

Tabula and ByteScout PDF Multitool are two of such software. In this article, a brief review of both of them has been presented.

Tabula

Tabula is used for extracting information stored within a PDF document and storing that information into CSV files and/or Excel sheets. If you tried to copy and paste content from tables or simple rows within a PDF document you would find that it is not as easy as doing it in Word. Tabula allows you to perform this functionality.

However, there is a limitation. Tabula can only be used to extract information from Text-based PDF documents and it cannot extract information from scanned PDF documents.

Tabula main features

1. Tabula is available for the 3 principal operating systems. These are Windows, Mac, and Linux. It runs in a Java setting so users will have to download java runtime conditions if they don’t have it. It does not run on Multi-lines rows or consolidated cells. Tabula cannot identify a scanned PDF text. It only operates on text-based PDF.
2. The purpose of the PDF arrangement is to present precisely the identical action across a broad spectrum of floors. The most important data that Tabula applies to identify tables is the location (x and y coordinates) of each particular record on the page. It operates sectionally in the browser and needs a Java Runtime Environment harmonious with Java 6 or 7. The steps are: Send a PDF and then choose the field of a table you need to transform into valuable data. Users have the choice of downloading as a comma- or tab-undone file as well as portraying it to the clipboard.
3. The important thing to remember is that Tabula is only composed of PDFs that were generated from the computerized text; it is not OCR software and won’t run with scanned pictures. Also, it runs best on simplistic table arrangements, not those where some rows or columns cross varied cells.

ByteScout PDF Multitool

This is an excellent alternative to Tabula and contains additional features. Some of those ones are listed below:

• with ByteScout PDF Multitool you can extract information from PDF tools even when you are offline;
• it can be used to search text and tables within a document;
• with the OCR engine, ByteScout PDF multitool can also be used to extract text from scanned documents. This functionality is not available in Tabula;
• unlike Tabula, it can also detect attachments within a PDF document and can extract information from them as well;
• finally, the installation process of the ByteScout PDF tool is extremely easy as compared to tabula.

PDF Multitool main features

PDF files give a lot of benefits, but there are occasions when users may discover it challenging to do some stuff using a conventional PDF reader. For example, many people cannot locate text in scanned reports or derive data to separate file setups.

Well, ByteScout PDF Multitool supports users to execute these duties and many others. ByteScout PDF MultiTool is a remarkably great tool for operating with PDFs. The application initiates as a simplistic view. Open a PDF and users can check through it, zoom in or out, pivot pages, explore for text, and more. A left-hand pane makes PDF MultiTool’s more attractive functions into a tree, with three principal segments.

1. It can obtain the text from image files (via OCR) as well as conventional documents. This tool can also selectively cut spaces, arrange text columns to any header, or free lines, before transporting the outcomes as TXT, CSV, XML, XLS, or XFDF, and keeping the outcomes as a file or imitating them to the clipboard.
2. The useful thing about this tool is that the utility section of this tool gives various means with the help of which users can divide documents, merge various documents, switch documents, add an image to the document and produce a PDF report either searchable or unsearchable. ByteScout PDF Multitool is an open PDF converter and PDF reader that also combines several other functions. The software runs comparatively fast even when managing huge scanned documents.
3. This tool comprises a collection of functions to transform PDF to CSV, PDF to XML, PDF to XLSX, PDF to XLS, PDF To HTML. Users can also obtain data and text from PDF files. The tools’ peculiarities include PDF To XML, PDF To Text, PDF To CSV. Users can also view the text from scanned PDF using OCR, examine the text with the regular expression, much more!

Having reviewed both Tabula and ByteScout PDF Multitool it is safe to say that ByteScout PDF Multitool is much better in terms of features as well as functionality.

   

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