PDF Find

Available Methods

• /pdf/find

• /pdf/find/table

/pdf-find

Find text in PDF and get coordinates. Supports regular expressions.

• Method: POST

• Endpoint: /v1/pdf-find

Attributes

Note

Attributes are case-sensitive and should be inside JSON for POST request, for example:

{
    "url": "https://example.com/file1.pdf"
}

Attribute	Description	Required
url	URL to the source file. 1	yes
httpusername	HTTP auth user name if required to access source url.	no
httppassword	HTTP auth password if required to access source url.	no
searchString	Text to search can support regular expressions if you set the regexSearch param to true.	yes
pages	Comma-separated indices of pages (or page ranges) that you want to use. The first-page index is always 0. For example, if you have a 7-page document that you want to be split into 3 separate PDFs but a different number of pages it would go like this: 0, 1, 2- or 1, 2, 3-7 which will result in 1 PDF with page one, 1 PDF with page two and one PDF with the rest of the pages. You can also use inverted page numbers adding ! before the number. E.g. !0 means “the last page”, 1-!1 means “from the second to the penultimate page”, and !1- - “last two pages”. Also, you can use a single asterisk (*) character as the range to split the document into separate pages. The input must be in string format.	no
inline	Set to true to return results inside the response. Otherwise, the endpoint will return a link to the output file generated. Note: only applies if async mode is true.	no
wordMatchingMode	Values can be either SmartMatch, ExactMatch, or None.	no
password	Password of PDF file, the input must be in string format.	no
regexSearch	Must be one of: true, or false. Default false.	no
async	Set async to true for long processes to run in the background, API will then return a jobId which you can use with the Background Job Check endpoint to check the status of the process and retrieve the output while you can proceed with other tasks.	no
profiles	Use this parameter to set additional configurations for fine-tuning and extra options. Explore the Profiles section for more.	no

Query parameters

No query parameters accepted.

Payload

{
    "async": "false",
    "url": "pdfco-test-files.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.compdf-to-text/sample.pdf",
    "searchString": "Invoice Date \\d+/\\d+/\\d+",
    "regexSearch": "true",
    "name": "output",
    "pages": "0-",
    "inline": "true",
    "wordMatchingMode": "",
    "password": ""
}

Response 2

{
    "body": [
        {
            "text": "Invoice Date 01/01/2016",
            "left": 436.5400085449219,
            "top": 130.4599995137751,
            "width": 122.85311957550027,
            "height": 11.040000486224898,
            "pageIndex": 0,
            "bounds": {
                "location": {
                    "isEmpty": false,
                    "x": 436.54,
                    "y": 130.46
                },
                "size": "122.853119, 11.0400009",
                "x": 436.54,
                "y": 130.46,
                "width": 122.853119,
                "height": 11.0400009,
                "left": 436.54,
                "top": 130.46,
                "right": 559.3931,
                "bottom": 141.5,
                "isEmpty": false
            },
            "elementCount": 1,
            "elements": [
                {
                    "index": 0,
                    "left": 436.5400085449219,
                    "top": 130.4599995137751,
                    "width": 122.85311957550027,
                    "height": 11.040000486224898,
                    "angle": 0,
                    "text": "Invoice Date 01/01/2016",
                    "isNewLine": true,
                    "fontIsBold": true,
                    "fontIsItalic": false,
                    "fontName": "Helvetica-Bold",
                    "fontSize": 11,
                    "fontColor": "0, 0, 0",
                    "fontColorAsOleColor": 0,
                    "fontColorAsHtmlColor": "#000000",
                    "bounds": {
                        "location": {
                            "isEmpty": false,
                            "x": 436.54,
                            "y": 130.46
                        },
                        "size": "122.853119, 11.0400009",
                        "x": 436.54,
                        "y": 130.46,
                        "width": 122.853119,
                        "height": 11.0400009,
                        "left": 436.54,
                        "top": 130.46,
                        "right": 559.3931,
                        "bottom": 141.5,
                        "isEmpty": false
                    }
                }
            ]
        }
    ],
    "pageCount": 1,
    "error": false,
    "status": 200,
    "name": "output",
    "remainingCredits": 59970
}

CURL

curl --location --request POST 'https://api.pdf.co/v1/pdf/find' \
--header 'x-api-key: ' \
--header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
--data-raw '{
    "async": "false",
    "url": "pdfco-test-files.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.compdf-to-text/sample.pdf",
    "searchString": "Invoice Date \\d+/\\d+/\\d+",
    "regexSearch": "true",
    "name": "output",
    "pages": "0-",
    "inline": "true",
    "wordMatchingMode": "",
    "password": ""
}'

---

/pdf-find-table

AI powered document analysis can scan your document for tables and return the array of tables on pages with coordinates and information about columns detected in these tables.

This function finds tables in documents using an AI-powered table detection engine.

This endpoint locates tables in an input PDF document and returns JSON with:

• The array of tables objects.

• X, Y, Width, and Height coordinates for every table found.

• Rect param for every table that you can re-use with pdf/convert/to/json, pdf/convert/to/csv, pdf/convert/to/csv, and other endpoints to extract a selected table only.

• PageIndex page index for a page with a table. The very first page is 0.

• Columns array with the set of X coordinates for every column inside the table that was found.

To extract the table into CSV, JSON, or XML please use pdf/convert/to/csv, pdf/convert/to/json2, and pdf/convert/to/xml endpoints with rect parameter value from rect output param for this table accordingly.

• Method: POST

• Endpoint: /v1/pdf-find/table

Attributes

Note

Attributes are case-sensitive and should be inside JSON for POST request, for example:

{
    "url": "https://example.com/file1.pdf"
}

Attribute	Description	Required
url	URL to the source file. 1	yes
httpusername	HTTP auth user name if required to access source url.	no
httppassword	HTTP auth password if required to access source url.	no
pages	Comma-separated indices of pages (or page ranges) that you want to use. The first-page index is always 0. For example, if you have a 7-page document that you want to be split into 3 separate PDFs but a different number of pages it would go like this: 0, 1, 2- or 1, 2, 3-7 which will result in 1 PDF with page one, 1 PDF with page two and one PDF with the rest of the pages. You can also use inverted page numbers adding ! before the number. E.g. !0 means “the last page”, 1-!1 means “from the second to the penultimate page”, and !1- - “last two pages”. Also, you can use a single asterisk (*) character as the range to split the document into separate pages. The input must be in string format.	no
inline	Set to true to return results inside the response. Otherwise, the endpoint will return a link to the output file generated. Note: only applies if async mode is true.	no
password	Password of PDF file, the input must be in string format.	no
async	Set async to true for long processes to run in the background, API will then return a jobId which you can use with the Background Job Check endpoint to check the status of the process and retrieve the output while you can proceed with other tasks.	no
name	File name for the generated output, the input must be in string format.	no
expiration	Set the expiration time for the output link in minutes (default is 60 i.e 60 minutes or 1 hour), After this specified duration, any generated output file(s) will be automatically deleted from PDF.co Temporary Files Storage. The maximum duration for link expiration varies based on your current subscription plan. To store permanent input files (e.g. re-usable images, pdf templates, documents) consider using PDF.co Built-In Files Storage.	no
profiles	Use this parameter to set additional configurations for fine-tuning and extra options. Explore the Profiles section for more.	no

Note

There is also a “legacy find tables” mode which can be used. Legacy mode can be enabled by setting an object on your profiles attribute like this:

"profiles": "{ 'Mode': 'Legacy'}"

With a more detailed config with minimum rows, minimum columns, and column detection mode:

"profiles": { 'Mode': 'Legacy',
               'ColumnDetectionMode': 'BorderedTables',
               'DetectionMinNumberOfRows': 1,
               'DetectionMinNumberOfColumns': 1,
               'DetectionMaxNumberOfInvalidSubsequentRowsAllowed': 0,
               'DetectionMinNumberOfLineBreaksBetweenTables': 0,
               'EnhanceTableBorders': false
            }

Query parameters

No query parameters accepted.

Payload

{
    "url": "pdfco-test-files.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.compdf-to-text/sample.pdf",
    "async": "false",
    "inline": "true",
    "password": ""
}

Response 2

{
    "body": {
        "tables": [
            {
                "PageIndex": 0,
                "X": 36,
                "Y": 34.4400024,
                "Width": 523.44,
                "Height": 160.82,
                "Columns": [
                    357.675
                ],
                "rect": "36, 34.4400024, 523.44, 160.82"
            },
            {
                "PageIndex": 0,
                "X": 36,
                "Y": 316.249969,
                "Width": 523.44,
                "Height": 120.620026,
                "Columns": [
                    157.117,
                    340.68,
                    475.84
                ],
                "rect": "36, 316.249969, 523.44, 120.620026"
            }
        ]
    },
    "pageCount": 1,
    "error": false,
    "status": 200,
    "name": "sample.json",
    "remainingCredits": 98892697,
    "credits": 21
}

CURL

curl --location --request POST 'https://api.pdf.co/v1/pdf/find/table' \
--header 'x-api-key: ' \
--header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
--data-raw '{
    "url": "pdfco-test-files.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.compdf-to-text/sample.pdf",
    "async": "false",
    "inline": "true",
    "password": ""
}'

---

Code samples

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• Salesforce samples

• cURL samples

Footnotes

1(1,2)

Supports links from Google Drive, Dropbox, and PDF.co Built-In Files Storage. To upload files via the API check out the File Upload section. Note: If you experience intermittent Too Many Requests or Access Denied errors, please try to add cache: to enable built-in URL caching. (e.g cache:https://example.com/file1.pdf) For data security, you have the option to encrypt output files and decrypt input files. Learn more about user-controlled data encryption.

2(1,2)

Main response codes as follows:

Code	Description
200	Success
400	Bad request. Typically happens because of bad input parameters, or because the input URLs can’t be reached, possibly due to access restrictions like needing a login or password.
401	Unauthorized
402	Not enough credits
445	Timeout error. To process large documents or files please use asynchronous mode (set the async parameter to true) and then check status using the /job/check endpoint. If a file contains many pages then specify a page range using the pages parameter. The number of pages of the document can be obtained using the /pdf/info endpoint.

Note

For more see the complete list of available response codes.

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