How to Extract Text from a Scanned PDF Using Postman and PDF.co

Step 1: Create the Postman Request

Open Postman and create a new HTTP request.

Configure it as follows:

• Method: POST
• URL: https://api.pdf.co/v1/pdf/convert/to/text

Step 2: Add the Request Headers

Add these headers:

• x-api-key: Your PDF.co API key
• Content-Type: application/json

Step 3: Configure the Request Body

Open the Body tab, select raw, and choose JSON.

Enter the following request:

{
  "url": "https://example.com/scanned-document.pdf",
  "pages": "0-",
  "lang": "eng",
  "inline": true,
  "async": false,
  "profiles": "{ 'OCRMode': 'TextFromImagesOnly', 'OCRResolution': 300 }"
}

Replace the example URL with a direct link to your scanned PDF. The URL must be accessible to PDF.co. You can also use a filetoken:// link from PDF.co File Storage.

The request uses these settings:

• pages: 0- processes every page.
• lang: eng selects English for OCR. Change it when processing another language.
• inline: true returns the extracted text directly in the response.
• async: false waits for the conversion to finish before returning the result.
• OCRMode: TextFromImagesOnly extracts text from page images.
• OCRResolution: 300 uses the default 300 DPI OCR resolution.

PDF.co also supports Auto OCR mode for documents that may contain a mixture of scanned images and existing text. Review the PDF-to-Text documentation and Profiles documentation for the current OCR modes, preprocessing filters, resolution settings, rotation options, and other extraction parameters.

Step 4: Send the Request

Select Send in Postman.

A successful response resembles:

{
  "body": "Extracted text from the scanned PDF...",
  "pageCount": 1,
  "error": false,
  "status": 200,
  "name": "scanned-document.txt",
  "remainingCredits": 1000
}

Confirm that:

• error is false.
• status is 200.
• body contains the extracted text.
• pageCount matches the number of processed pages.

Step 5: Download the Result as a Text File

To receive a downloadable text file, change:

"inline": false

Send the request again. The response will contain a temporary URL to the generated text file:

{
  "url": "https://pdf-temp-files.s3.amazonaws.com/.../scanned-document.txt",
  "error": false,
  "status": 200
}

Open the URL to download the file. Save it to permanent storage if it must remain available because PDF.co output links are temporary.