Compared
Where truecopy is the right tool, and where it is not.
Every comparison starts with what the other tool does better. A comparison that finds no merit in the alternative is an advertisement, and nobody trusts one.
truecopy vs PDFExcavator
PDFExcavator is a far richer extractor. It handles characters, graphics, OCR, CJK text and nested tables. It answers "what is on this page". truecopy answers "should I believe what came back". Reach for both.
truecopy vs pdfplumber
pdfplumber gives you every character and lets you see why extraction failed. truecopy tells you when the reading cannot be trusted. They answer different questions, and one of them runs in a browser.
truecopy vs Camelot
Camelot has two extraction modes and hands you a DataFrame. truecopy has one pipeline and hands you a verdict. Which you want depends on whether anybody checks the result.
truecopy vs asking a model to extract it
A model reads layouts nothing deterministic can. It also answers confidently when it should not, and the literature says why. The two are complements, and the checking half is the one nobody builds.
When none of them is right
- Your documents are scans. truecopy reads a text layer. Run OCR first and hand the lines over. The checking half still applies.
- Nobody acts on the result. If a wrong row costs nothing, every guarantee on this site costs you something for nothing.
- You need the table as a picture. Cell borders, spans and merged headers are a rendering problem, and truecopy is not a renderer.