Tabula

Tabula solves one of the most persistent problems in Indian data work: government data published as PDFs with embedded tables. It provides a simple visual interface — you draw boxes around the tables you want, and Tabula extracts them into clean CSV or Excel files. For researchers, journalists, and civic technologists who regularly download budget documents, statistical reports, and survey results that are PDF-only, Tabula is often the first tool in the pipeline. The underlying technology (tabula-java) can be scripted for batch processing. Free, open-source, and runs on your desktop. Complement with Camelot (Python library) for more complex table extraction needs.