Flight Timber Products Ltd.'s Designer Saves 6 Hours a Week with Able2Extract

The Longer Route To Accurate Vector Information

As successful engineering service providers, the Flight Timber team regularly deals with a variety of PDF files. Every employee in the company has their own document management workflow and preferred software. For Paul Erickson, a timber frame designer, document management was getting a bit overwhelming.

"The files I am working with are mostly external," he explains. "The majority of it is PDF drawings that I receive and they come either from customers or architects. 90% of the time I need to get those PDFs in AutoCAD and into the Wolf Systems Truss Software that I use for work. That being said, my biggest productivity killer before trying Able2Extract was manual re-entry."

Manual re-entry is a very time and resource intensive process, so Paul started to search for possible solutions. First, he tested a number of online PDF converters, but he never got the conversion output he needed. That is when Paul decided to go for a secure, desktop PDF conversion solution.

"I was frustrated because of all the inaccuracies and wasted time trying to get information from clients and their representatives," he says. "After discovering Able2Extract, PDF management became much easier for me."

Able2Extract Saves Hours With an Intuitive Interface

After researching possible solutions, Paul decided to go with Able2Extract and its secure, desktop PDF conversions.

"I decided to try a data extraction tool about two years ago," he recalls. "I tried some free software and the conversion output was just not good. I ran into Able2Extract and decided to check it out. Thankfully, it had a 7 day free trial. After testing it, I realized that it had everything I wanted. Converting to Word was an added bonus."

Satisfied with the conversion output, Paul was instantly able to save hours per project thanks to Able2Extract's intuitive user interface.

"It was very straightforward and simple to navigate. There really were no teething problems and the conversion was accurate and quick. I was instantly able to just overlay my own stuff over the top of the original PDF data and get accurate design out of it, rather than having to scale dimensions and things off of the PDF."

Paul also reflects on some of his favorite perks of becoming a member of the Able2Extract family: "One of my favorite features is your customer support service. They answer all my questions and point me in the right direction."

By providing a meaningful shortcut, Able2Extract helped Paul discover just how much more productive he could get with the extra free time.

The Perks Of Automated PDF to AutoCAD Conversion

It didn't take Paul long to recognize the benefits of efficient and automated PDF data extraction. He claims, "Able2Extract saves about 4 hours on manual re-entry per project. This translates into a total of 6 hours per week on my computer and 9-15 hours on other computers in the office. The ability to quickly import PDF drawings into AutoCAD is a huge lifesaver."

Seeing Paul satisfied with his latest PDF tool, several of his coworkers decided to join him. Some of them were interested in Able2Extract's proprietary PDF to Excel conversion while the majority still used PDF to DWG conversion.

Paul breaks down the amount of time they save: "As I said, it saves about 4 hours per project. On a larger time scale, this is around 6 hours of time saved per week on my computer, and probably 9-15 on one of the other computers in the office."

Paul adds that his other favorite feature is Able2Extract's PDF to Word conversion. "PDF to Word is a great feature," he says. "The PDFs I convert into Word are generally things that I would issue to production, so it's a bonus that I can automate that as well."

Paul rounds off, "I would recommend Able2Extract because it is simple, reliable and offers great back-up and customer support."