I've used Tabula for many years, and it works great. Use it for converting PDF invoices from specific supplier for import into our system. Changed a task that took about a day each month, to about 10 minutes each month.
Nope, it doesn't. I've honestly found tabula is pretty limited in its use. When it works it works well, but when it doesn't you're still stuck writing a lot of hodge podge code. Not sure why there's not more criticism of it.