PDF to Text

Overview

Text is read with Mozilla's pdf.js, in reading order with line breaks kept. Up to 100 pages are read per call; longer documents report their full page count with truncated set to true. Scanned PDFs have no text layer and return hasText false, as no OCR is performed.

Live Test PDF to Text API →

Endpoint

One host, one path per API. The block below shows this call in four languages; every one of them is the same HTTP request. Making requests covers the timeouts, retries and parameter rules that apply to all of them. The SDKs wrap the same call in a typed client.

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curl -X POST https://api.apiverve.com/v1/pdftotext \
  -H "x-api-key: your_api_key_here" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
  "pdf": "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mozilla/pdf.js/master/test/pdfs/basicapi.pdf"
}'

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const res = await fetch('https://api.apiverve.com/v1/pdftotext', {
  method: 'POST',
  headers: {
    'x-api-key': 'your_api_key_here',
    'Content-Type': 'application/json',
  },
  body: JSON.stringify({
  "pdf": "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mozilla/pdf.js/master/test/pdfs/basicapi.pdf"
}),
});

if (!res.ok) throw new Error(`${res.status} ${await res.text()}`);

const { data } = await res.json();
console.log(data);

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import requests

res = requests.post(
    "https://api.apiverve.com/v1/pdftotext",
    headers={"x-api-key": "your_api_key_here"},
    json={
    "pdf": "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mozilla/pdf.js/master/test/pdfs/basicapi.pdf"
},
    timeout=15,
)
res.raise_for_status()

print(res.json()["data"])

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package main

import (
	"fmt"
	"io"
	"net/http"
	"strings"
)

func main() {
	body := strings.NewReader(`{
  "pdf": "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mozilla/pdf.js/master/test/pdfs/basicapi.pdf"
}`)
	req, _ := http.NewRequest("POST", "https://api.apiverve.com/v1/pdftotext", body)
	req.Header.Set("Content-Type", "application/json")
	req.Header.Set("x-api-key", "your_api_key_here")

	res, err := http.DefaultClient.Do(req)
	if err != nil {
		panic(err)
	}
	defer res.Body.Close()

	out, _ := io.ReadAll(res.Body)
	fmt.Println(string(out))
}

Replace your_api_key_here with the key from your dashboard. When the inputs arrive as a list rather than one at a time, batch requests run up to 200 of them through this same API in a single call.

Authentication

Send your key in the x-api-key header. That is the only auth step — there is no token exchange and no per-endpoint scope to configure. Authentication covers creating, rotating and revoking keys.

Parameters

Sent as JSON in the request body. Premium parameters are accepted on every plan but only take effect on plans that include them.

Response

Every API returns the same three top-level keys, so one response handler covers your whole integration: status, error and data. Only data changes shape. Response format covers the envelope, the other output formats and how premium fields are withheld.

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{
  "status": "ok",
  "error": null,
  "data": {
    "text": "Table Of Content\nChapter 1 .......................................................... 2\nParagraph 1.1 ...................................................... 3\npage 1 / 3\n\nChapter 1\npage 2 / 3\n\nParagra…",
    "pageCount": 3,
    "pagesExtracted": 3,
    "truncated": false,
    "hasText": true,
    "wordCount": 31,
    "characterCount": 250,
    "pages": [
      {
        "page": 1,
        "text": "Table Of Content\nChapter 1 .......................................................... 2\nParagraph 1.1 ...................................................... 3\npage 1 / 3",
        "wordCount": 15
      },
      {
        "page": 2,
        "text": "Chapter 1\npage 2 / 3",
        "wordCount": 6
      },
      {
        "page": 3,
        "text": "Paragraph 1.1\nPowered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)\npage 3 / 3",
        "wordCount": 10
      }
    ],
    "metadata": {
      "title": "Basic API Test",
      "author": "Brendan Dahl",
      "subject": null,
      "creator": "pdf.js",
      "producer": "TCPDF 5.9.133 (http://www.tcpdf.org)",
      "creationDate": "2012-04-10T21:30:26.000Z",
      "modificationDate": "2012-04-10T21:30:26.000Z",
      "pdfVersion": "1.7"
    }
  }
}

Response fields

Paths are relative to data. Premium fields are absent rather than zeroed on plans that do not include them, so check for presence instead of comparing to 0.

Errors

Read the HTTP status first, then error for the specific reason. The body names the parameter that has to change. Error handling covers the full status list and which of them are worth retrying.

Use cases

Search Indexing

Index the text of uploaded PDFs so users can search inside documents, not just their titles.

AI and RAG Pipelines

Feed PDF text, page by page, into embeddings or a language model for question answering over documents.

Document Intake

Read invoices, statements and forms as text for downstream parsing and validation.

Content Moderation

Check the text of uploaded PDFs against your policies before they are published.

Other ways to use PDF to Text

Set up PDF to Text on APIVerve, or reach the same source a different way. Your APIVerve account and credits work on all of them — one key, one balance.

Related

More in Documents: