Parse a document

Parse a document with one input field and your API key. Read Markdown, request individual elements, or reuse the result for extraction.

Parse needs one document source: input for a new upload or file_id for a previous upload. Your API key authenticates the request. All other controls are optional.

Send a document

Set UNSTRUCTURED_API_KEY to your API key and replace document.pdf with your file path.

export UNSTRUCTURED_API_KEY="your-api-key"

curl https://transform.unstructured.io/api/v2/parse \
  -H "unstructured-api-key: $UNSTRUCTURED_API_KEY" \
  -F "input=@document.pdf"

A synchronous request keeps the connection open until parsing completes. Multi-page documents can take about a minute or longer. That wait is expected. For an immediate response, use asynchronous processing.

HTTP 200 returns a document result. Read markdown when processing completes. HTTP 202 means processing continues; retain the response’s Location header and follow request progress.

Choose the output

The default is output=markdown. Add -F "output=elements" to receive individual elements with text, type, and page metadata. In that representation, markdown is null.

The optional include query parameter accepts coordinates and table_html only with elements output. Requested coordinates or table HTML are not guaranteed for every element. Check whether each field is present before reading it.

Reuse your document

Use file_id instead of input for a previous upload. After Parse completes, use its id as parse_id to Extract fields.

See the captured response and optional parameters.

See Chain Parse and Extract for a complete sequence that passes the Parse ID into Extract.