How to Extract Text from Scanned PDF using Postman and PDF.co

Step 1: Scanned PDF File

In this tutorial, we will show you how to use the Optical Character Recognition Mode to extract text from a scanned PDF file using Postman and PDF.co.

To easily identify the kind of document you have, you can use our PDF Multitool desktop app. As you can see in the screenshot below, our PDF document only contains images.

Step 2: Open PDF To Text Template

To begin, let’s open the POST /pdf/convert/to/text under the PDF to TEXT folder in the PDF.co API v.1.00 collection. This is a PDF to Text API template that you can use to try out the API right away.

Step 3: Set Parameter Values

Let’s replace the default values with our own.

• In the url parameter, insert the scanned PDF file link.
• Let’s leave the inline parameter to true so we can see the text result within Postman.
• Add the profiles parameter and set the OCRMode to TextFromImagesOnly. This will run the OCR to extract text from images and ignores vector and text objects.

Once all values have been added, click on the Send button.

Below is the cURL code version.

curl --location --request POST 'https://api.pdf.co/v1/pdf/convert/to/text' \
--header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
--header 'x-api-key: YOUR_API_KEY' \
--data-raw '{
    "url": "filetoken://469ec23c368dcfc9ce0c02ac28056b441e725cea193544ee",
    "inline": true,
    "profiles": "{ '\''OCRMode'\'': '\''TextFromImagesOnly'\'' }"
}'

Step 4: Extracted Text From PDF

Great! We have extracted text from the scanned PDF file. You can set the inline to false to get a downloadable file instead. The URL is temporary and is set to expire after an hour by default. You have the option to increase output link expiration in our Business plan and higher.