What is the difference between Able2Extract’s Standard and Professional edition?

When releasing version 11.0 of Able2Extract, we decided to make a change and eliminate the Standard edition of the software. So, we now only offer Professional edition of Able2Extract.

However, earlier versions of Able2Extract – v. 10.0 or older – had both Standard and Professional edition. Able2Extract Standard and Able2Extract Professional have all the same features, except for one difference – Professional edition has the ability to convert both native (electronic) and scanned PDF documents, while Standard edition can only convert native PDFs.

- How to tell if the PDF file you are working with is scanned, and you need Professional edition of Able2Extract so as to convert it?

Here are the most common situations:

1. If while using Standard edition of Able2Extract, you encounter a message that states: "This page is Image only – Click Here to Learn How to Extract Text".
2. If in the result you receive after the conversion you encounter a message: "Your PDF Document is a scanned, image-based PDF. To successfully convert this file, you need OCR based Able2Extract Professional".
3. If upon the conversion you receive a blank output file.
4. If you try conversion to Excel or CSV and after the conversion is done, you are not able to find your conversion result in the specified folder.
5. If you try conversion to Word or PowerPoint and you get an output file, but with images in the resulting .docx/pptx file, instead of editable text.

In all these cases, the document you are trying to convert is either a scanned PDF, or a native (i.e. electronically generated) PDF but with images incorporated into it. In order to convert these types of files, the document has to be analyzed optically on a character-by-character basis. This can be done by using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology. However, only Professional type of Able2Extract has embedded OCR engine, and therefore can convert scanned or imaged-based PDFs.

So, if you are dealing with such PDFs often, you may wish to upgrade to the Professional edition. To learn how to upgrade, please check article "Can I upgrade my Able2Extract Standard edition to the Professional version".

This article refers to Able2Extract and Able2Extract Professional.