New Able2Extract Professional 14: Sign PDFs & Convert with AI

Posted by Andreas Christodoulou

Description :

At https://officialandreascy.blogspot.com, the editorial team likes to keep tabs on the software they review, to keep giving you the latest and the best out of the tools we showcase. It’s about helping you work digitally and more productively.

In this case, it’s all about working efficiently with PDF documents and for that, we’ve got an update on Able2Extract Professional, the PDF suite we’ve reviewed before that lets you fill and edit PDF forms, and complete a range of other PDF tasks. 

The new advanced features in this latest version, are opening users up to working better than ever with PDF files. Here’s a look at the newest major features.

Sign PDFs With Electronic And Digital Signatures

Nowadays, when your workload is completely done by computer, the hard copy tasks you normally performed physically, like signing documents, are now done digitally. The new Able2Extract Professional 14 now includes the ability to add electronic and digital signatures to PDF files with a few clicks. 

Electronic image signatures are easily inserted by typing them in, drawing them out or importing a signature image. Digital cryptographic signatures are added by signing a PDF, and then attaching a digital certificate to it. All of this is done through a convenient side panel, no other application needed.

This feature, fills the growing demand for highly secured documents. It’s a valuable addition to the file permissions, encryption, and protection passwords, Able2Extract Professional can already add to PDF documents. 

Instantly Verify Digital Signatures

To complement the ability to sign PDFs, you can now also verify digital signatures. Able2Extract Professional does this in an extremely user-friendly way, allowing you to first visually confirm the status of a digital signature, with a quick glance at a padlock icon in the tab of an opened PDF file. Secondly, you can click on the digital signature in the side panel, to view the signature’s information. This lets you know if the PDF was altered after being signed.

Needless to say, knowing that the PDF you have, hasn’t been altered is a must in this day and age of data breaches and electronic documents exchanges. If your work is based on a lot of confidential and important files, you’ll be glad to have this feature.

AI-Powered PDF to Excel: Smart and Master Templates

Known for its Custom PDF to Excel conversion, Able2Extract Professional has long since given users the ability to manually adjust rows, columns and table structure selections to produce accurate conversion results in to Excel. Believe it or not, the developers have improved upon the feature with artificial intelligence technology. 

This AI technology, lets you train custom Excel templates with a sampling of 5-10 PDF files that contain the selected table structures you want out of a PDF document. These trained Smart templates can then be used by Able2Extract, to automatically select all the similar tables in a PDF file on its own. After you load it, a click on the Convert button will convert all those same tables into a single spreadsheet. 

AI-powered Master (Batch conversion) templates are similar in that you train them on PDF samples, but the difference is that you can also harness the power of a batch conversion with them. Just train an Excel template in Batch mode and then afterwards, you can apply that Master template to the applicable PDFs you line up for a batch conversion. The result is, an automatic and customized PDF to Excel batch conversion job. 

Our Verdict

We were more than impressed with the capabilities of the software’s last version, and have to admit that this version is miles ahead of that. This tool is excellent at innovating and improving upon the PDF features it already has to offer. 

If you liked everything we covered about Able2Extract Professional before, you’ll love this latest version. Again, you can test out the above features for yourself with a 7-day free trial.

*by andreascy*

How to Fill and Edit PDF Forms with Able2Extract Pro 12 [Sneak Preview]

Posted by Andreas Christodoulou

Description :

A few years ago, THE OFFICIAL ANDREASCY editorial team featured the Able2Extract PDF Converter and presented the multiple benefits of owning a similar software program. At the time, it was the first cross-platform PDF conversion software compatible with Windows, Linux and MacOS. Since then (we tested and reviewed the version 8), Able2Extract Professional has grown into a full-blown PDF solution that not only converts PDF to other file types, but also creates, annotates and edits PDFs on the spot. 

PDF annotations and advanced editing files without conversion seem to be the most interesting recent additions and productivity boosters when it comes to working with PDFs. Using PDF annotations, for example, you can easily highlight your PDF content or add custom watermarks to your files. And, of course, direct editing of PDF content is the holy grail of efficient PDF file management.

Few days ago, we have learned that the developer is about to release the newest, updated version of the software with lots of new features and enhancements. These include adding customized bates numbers to PDFs, even faster conversion of multiple PDFs at once, and, most notably, PDF forms filling and editing. 

Interactive PDF forms allow us to minimize the usage of paper and save time on scanning various paper forms that we need to submit elsewhere. That is exactly why we wanted to be the first ones to actually test and demonstrate how you can complete and modify PDF forms with Able2Extract Professional 12 that is about to be released on December 6th 2017. 

So, without further ado, here is the detailed tutorial on filling and editing PDF forms.

How to Fill Out PDF Forms

To start completing a PDF form with Able2Extract, just open it in the software using the Open icon on the command toolbar, or hit Ctrl+O on your keyboard.

As soon as you have your interactive PDF form opened in Able2Extract, you are ready to interact with it. Click on the field and start entering your information. Input text into text fields, select multiple items on list boxes, specify your options in combo-boxes and checkboxes, and click on push-buttons.

If you make a mistake while you are completing the form, you can go back to any given field and make desired edits. 

Once you’ve completed the form, save it to your hard drive or submit. To save a form, click on the Save icon you can also find on the toolbar (or, if you prefer to use the keyboard, then CTRL+S will do the trick). Next time you open the same PDF form, it will contain the information that you entered in Able2Extract. Of course, should you prefer to save one blank copy on your hard drive, save the completed form using the Save As option on the File menu. 

How to Edit PDF Forms 

The latest version of Able2Extract comes with an integrated PDF form editor. Thanks to this advanced capability, you can not only fill out PDF forms but also easily modify them. For example, insert an additional text field or add a new combobox. Or, maybe just add a new item or delete the existing one from the combobox already present in the PDF form. 

It’s really easy, but here is the quick how to guide to editing PDF forms. 

Open the PDF form in Able2Extract as already described. Then click on the Edit icon also easily recognized on the main toolbar to switch to the PDF editing more. 

On the right side, you will see the Edit PDF side panel. Further to the right, you will see two small tabs. You will need to click on the PDF form tab that is just below the tab you are currently in (see the screenshot below):

Having done that, you will see the Edit PDF form side-panel with two main sections: Form Fields and Properties.

As you can see in the screen capture above, you can add six different form fields (from the top left row to the bottom right row): text box, combobox, list box, checkbox, radio button, action button. And you can also delete any form field (just select it by clicking on it). 

To add a form field, click on it and drag onto the page. 

Note that for each form field that you add, you can define properties like name, font, font size, background or border color, line width and border style. You can also specify that a certain field be Read-only or Required by checking the appropriate box in the Properties menu. 

Clicking the More button, you will have the option to define additional properties for the specified PDF field. Let’s take, for example, the text field. You can customize the default text, specify that the field be multiline, turn off the spell check for the entered text and more, as you can see on the image below.

Obviously, there are multiple options for customizing and editing your forms. You can create complex PDF forms with Able2Extract. 

Having created your PDF form, save it. Optionally, you can go back to the convert mode by clicking on the Convert icon found on the toolbar and complete the form you have just made. Then proceed to saving. 

Conclusion

Our verdict is the Able2Extract Professional’s form filler and editor work really well. Of course, most people will probably use it to complete PDF forms and submit it to servers. But the real power lies in its PDF form editing functionality. Users who often prepare and work with PDF forms will probably best recognize its potential and appreciate it. 

As noted at the beginning of this review and tutorial, Able2Extract Professional 12, with form filling and editing will be released on December 6th, 2017. So, if you want to try it for yourself, it will from that date be available for download here. Trying it is free for 7 days -- just about enough to play with and test all (or most) of its features. 

*by andreascy*