PDF to JSON#

Available Methods#

/pdf/convert/to/json2
/pdf/convert/to/json-meta

Note

Auto classification Of incoming documents

Use the Document Classifier endpoint to automatically sort/detect the class of the document based on keywords-based rules. For example, you can define rules to find which vendor provided the document to find which template to apply accordingly.

/pdf/convert/to/json2#

Convert PDF and scanned images into JSON representation with text, fonts, images, vectors, and formatting preserved.

Method: POST
Endpoint: /v1/pdf/convert/to/json2

/pdf/convert/to/json-meta#

What is the difference between /pdf/convert/to/json-meta and /pdf/convert/to/json2?

/json-meta uses AI to detect meta styles for text objects, such as:

paragraph style (from h1 .. h7 to p and small).
meta type of the text object (text, datetime, integer, decimal, currency etc.).
meta subType of the text object (companyName, personName and other AI-based meta types).
/json-meta consumes more credits because it runs with AI.
/json-meta is also a bit slower due to the AI process. Async mode is recommended for this endpoint.

Convert PDF and scanned images into JSON using AI.

Method: POST
Endpoint: /v1/pdf/convert/to/json-meta

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
`unwrap`	Unwrap lines into a single line within table cells when `lineGrouping` is enabled. Must be one of: `true`, or `false`.	no
`rect`	Defines coordinates for extraction, e.g. `51.8, 114.8, 235.5, 204.0`. Use PDF Edit Add Helper to get or measure PDF coordinates. The input must be in string format.	no
`lang`	Set the language for OCR (text from image) to use for scanned PDF, PNG, and JPG documents input when extracting text. The default is `eng`. Other languages are also supported: `deu`, `spa`, `chi_sim`, `jpn`, and many others, see Language Support. You can also use 2 languages simultaneously like this: `eng+deu` or `jpn+kor` (any combination).	no
`inline`	Set to `true` to return results inside the response. Otherwise, the endpoint will return a link to the output file generated.	no
`lineGrouping`	Line grouping within table cells. Set to `1` to enable the grouping. 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

Query parameters#

No query parameters accepted.

Payload#

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

Response 2 #

{
  "body": {
        "document": {
            "pageCount": "1",
            "pageCountWithOCRPerformed": "0",
            "page": {
                "index": "0",
                "width": "595.320007324219",
                "height": "841.919982910156",
                "OCRWasPerformed": "False",
                "row": [
                    {
                        "column": [
                            {
                                "text": {
                                    "fontName": "Arial",
                                    "fontSize": "24.0",
                                    "fontStyle": "Bold",
                                    "color": "#538DD3",
                                    "x": "36.00",
                                    "y": "34.44",
                                    "width": "242.81",
                                    "height": "24.00",
                                    "text": "Your Company Name"
                                }
                            },
                            {
                                "text": ""
                            },
                            {
                                "text": ""
                            },
                            {
                                "text": ""
                            }
                        ]
                    },
                    {
                        "column": [
                            {
                                "text": ""
                            },
                            {
                                "text": ""
                            },
                            {
                                "text": {
                                    "fontName": "Arial",
                                    "fontSize": "11.0",
                                    "fontStyle": "Bold",
                                    "x": "389.11",
                                    "y": "425.83",
                                    "width": "36.75",
                                    "height": "11.04",
                                    "text": "TOTAL"
                                }
                            },
                            {
                                "text": {
                                    "fontName": "Arial",
                                    "fontSize": "11.0",
                                    "fontStyle": "Bold",
                                    "x": "525.82",
                                    "y": "425.83",
                                    "width": "33.62",
                                    "height": "11.04",
                                    "text": "200.00"
                                }
                            }
                        ]
                    }
                ]
            }
        }
    },
    "pageCount": 1,
    "error": false,
    "status": 200,
    "name": "sample.json",
    "remainingCredits": 99227903,
    "credits": 28
}

CURL#

curl --location --request POST 'https://api.pdf.co/v1/pdf/convert/to/json2' \
--header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
--header 'x-api-key: ' \
--data-raw '{
    "url": "https://pdfco-test-files.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/pdf-to-json/sample.pdf",
    "inline": true,
    "async": false
}'

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

Code samples#

Footnotes

1

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

Response codes as follows:

Code	Description
`200`	The request has succeeded
`400`	Bad input parameters
`401`	Unauthorized
`403`	Not enough credits
`405`	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.

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