Extract Text from Scanned PDF with Zapier – Step-by-Step

  1. Setup Trigger, select Google Drive as App Event
  2. Choose New File in Folder as the Trigger Event
  3. Select or connect Google Drive account
  4. Select Drive and Folder
  5. Test the Trigger
  6. Setup Action, select PDF.co as App Event
  7. Choose PDF to Anything Converter as Action Event
  8. Select or connect PDF.co account
  9. Setup Action parameters
  10. Test action
  11. Extracted text output

We prepared this step-by-step tutorial with screenshots to teach you how to extract text from scanned PDF using Zapier.

Screenshot of Scanned PDF
Screenshot of Scanned PDF

Start by clicking on Make a Zap! at the upper-left corner of your Zapier dashboard.

Step 1: Setup Trigger, select Google Drive as App Event

Choosing google drive as the trigger app

Step 2: Choose New File in Folder as the Trigger Event

NOTE: For this tutorial, I’m using Google Drive storage. You may also use other cloud storage as your trigger, just look for a similar trigger event.

Choosing new file in folder as the trigger event

Step 3: Select or connect Google Drive account

Connecting google drive account

Step 4: Select Drive and Folder

Select My Google Drive as the drive to be used and select the specific folder where the PDF file is located

Selecting drive and folder

Step 5: Test the Trigger

We will then Test the trigger to see if there are any errors or none

Test the trigger

We’re now done setting up the trigger for this Zap. Let’s now move on to the action.

Step 6: Setup Action, select PDF.co as App Event

Select PDF.co as the action app

Step 7: Choose PDF to Anything Converter as Action Event

Choose PDF to Anything Converter as action event

Step 8: Select or connect PDF.co account

Connect PDF.co account

Step 9: Setup Action parameters

Under Setup Action:

  • Set Output Format as Plain Text
  • Choose Web Content Link as PDF URL
  • Set Pages to 0- to select all pages
  • Set a Name if you want the output PDF to have a different name
  • Set Inline to False if you want the output to be a downloadable URL 
  • Set OCR Language to the same language as your source PDF

Setup action parameters

Setup action parameters

Step 10: Test Action

We will now Test the action to check for errors if there are any.

Testing action

Step 11: Extracted text output

This is the output of our Extracted text

Screenshot of output text
Screenshot of output text

In this tutorial, you’ve learned how to extract text from scanned PDF using Zapier.