TROY, Mich., June 15, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Altair (Nasdaq: ALTR), a global technology company providing solutions in product development, high-performance computing (HPC), and data analytics, today announced the latest launch of Altair® Monarch®, a major new release of its powerful and intuitive data preparation solution. Marking the 30^th anniversary of Monarch’s original launch, the new version strengthens the ability of users to extract and convert data automatically from sources including Excel spreadsheets, PDFs, and text-based files, and prepare it quickly and precisely for efficient data analysis and machine learning predictions. 

By converting data from any source into rows and columns without any need for coding, Monarch quickly generates clean and accessible reports. More than 80 pre-built functions are available, enabling laborious and error-prone manual data preparation tasks to be fully automated. Reports that previously took hours or even days to create are now completed in minutes. As a result, users are free to focus on value added data analysis that supports better decision making.

Key features new to Monarch include:

• Excel trapping – This unique feature enables users to deal with complex Excel inputs. Rules can now be utilized to extract and add structure to data and metadata from workbooks that are either designed for reporting or incorporate multiple worksheets.
• Improved PDF extraction – By identifying graphical elements such as rectangles and lines on rendered PDF page images, Monarch accommodates the diverse range of report styles employed in this format. Any combination of font and background colors can be extracted successfully.
• Support for Altair Units – Altair’s flexible licensing model allows customers to pay only for what they need; when they need it.

“With a global user community in the tens of thousands, Monarch encompasses our long experience of helping customers overcome complex data preparation challenges,” said Sam Mahalingam, chief technical officer, Altair. “Thirty years to the day since the original launch, it is entirely appropriate that we now offer even greater freedom to transform data from multiple sources into a powerful business asset.”

A free trial of Monarch is available at https://web.altair.com/monarch-free-trial and more information can be found at https://www.altair.com/monarch/.

For more insight into Altair’s data analytics offerings, join us at the virtual Altair Data Analytics Summit on June 23-25 to be immersed in the technologies and ideas that drive smarter decision-making: https://web.altair.com/data-analytics-summit.

About Altair (Nasdaq: ALTR)
Altair is a global technology company that provides software and cloud solutions in the areas of product development, high performance computing (HPC) and data analytics. Altair enables organizations across broad industry segments to compete more effectively in a connected world while creating a more sustainable future. To learn more, please visit www.altair.com.

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Newest version of Altair Monarch now available

Altair Monarch® is easy-to-use with no coding required to clean, join, append, and transform difficult and messy data into data ready for analytics and machine learning.

New feature in Altair Monarch®: Excel Trappings

New feature in Altair Monarch®: Excel trapping, designed to trap data from complex Excel spreadsheets that have merged cells, multiple tabs, conditional formatted cells and rows, and may have complicated cell functions.