What is the best option to extract data from a flattened PDF?

When dealing with a flattened PDF, the most effective method of data extraction is through the "Extract Text" feature. This method is designed specifically to retrieve plain text from documents where the format has been reduced to a single layer, which is characteristic of flattened PDFs.

Flattened PDFs prevent the extraction of structured fields as they do not contain separate, identifiable form elements. Therefore, traditional techniques for capturing form fields and structured data, which might include "Extract Form Fields" or OCR (Optical Character Recognition), may not yield successful results.

While "OCR" is an essential tool for extracting text from images or scanned documents, its effectiveness is contingent on the clarity and format of the content. In contrast, "Extract Text" can handle the entire document's text content without the complications arising from the layered structure of interactive PDFs or images.

Hence, "Extract Text" stands out as the best option in this specific context, where the goal is to obtain text data from a flattened PDF file.