OCR for scanned PDFs

Recommended pipeline

Use inspection to detect sparse text, invoke OCR only when needed, then review low-confidence records instead of silently treating them as exact text.

1. Read the live capability detail and project limits.
2. Upload and complete an immutable input.
3. Submit the operation with a stable idempotency key and hard cost ceiling.
4. Read terminal job state, artifact records, hashes, and receipt.

Relevant operations

• inspect_pdf
• recognize_pdf_text
• render_pdf_pages

Start with the SDK

const pdf = new PDFCentralClient({ apiKey: process.env.PDF_CENTRAL_API_KEY });
const input = await pdf.upload(bytes, { filename: "input.pdf" });
const job = await pdf.run("inspect_pdf", {
  fileIds: [input.file_id],
  maxCostMicrousd: 200000
});

Availability and parameters may differ by operation. Use the linked capability detail as the source of truth.

Run the quick start