pdf-inspector/docs/python.md

pdf-inspector

Fast PDF classification and text extraction. Detects whether a PDF is text-based or scanned, extracts text with position awareness, and converts to clean Markdown — all without OCR. Python bindings via PyO3 for the pdf-inspector Rust library.

Built by Firecrawl to handle text-based PDFs locally in under 200ms, skipping expensive OCR services for the ~54% of PDFs that don't need them.

Install

pip install pdf-inspector

Prebuilt wheels cover CPython ≥3.8 on Linux (x86_64, aarch64), macOS (Intel, Apple Silicon), and Windows (x64). Other platforms build from source, which requires a Rust toolchain. For local development in a repo checkout:

pip install maturin
maturin develop --release

Usage

import pdf_inspector

# Full processing: detect + extract + convert to Markdown
result = pdf_inspector.process_pdf("document.pdf")
print(result.pdf_type)      # "text_based", "scanned", "image_based", "mixed"
print(result.confidence)     # 0.0 - 1.0
print(result.page_count)     # number of pages
print(result.markdown)       # Markdown string or None

# Process specific pages only
result = pdf_inspector.process_pdf("document.pdf", pages=[1, 3, 5])

# Process from bytes (no filesystem needed)
with open("document.pdf", "rb") as f:
    result = pdf_inspector.process_pdf_bytes(f.read())

# Fast detection only (no text extraction)
result = pdf_inspector.detect_pdf("document.pdf")
if result.pdf_type == "text_based":
    print("Can extract locally!")
else:
    print(f"Pages needing OCR: {result.pages_needing_ocr}")

# Plain text extraction
text = pdf_inspector.extract_text("document.pdf")

# Positioned text items with font info
items = pdf_inspector.extract_text_with_positions("document.pdf")
for item in items[:5]:
    print(f"'{item.text}' at ({item.x:.0f}, {item.y:.0f}) size={item.font_size}")

# Per-page markdown (one Markdown string per page, plus layout metadata)
result = pdf_inspector.extract_pages_markdown("document.pdf")
for page in result.pages:
    print(f"Page {page.page}: {len(page.markdown)} chars, needs_ocr={page.needs_ocr}")

# Restrict to specific 0-indexed pages (preserves caller order)
result = pdf_inspector.extract_pages_markdown("document.pdf", pages=[0, 2])

API reference

Function	Description
process_pdf(path, pages=None)	Full processing (detect + extract + markdown)
process_pdf_bytes(data, pages=None)	Full processing from bytes
detect_pdf(path)	Fast detection only (returns PdfResult)
detect_pdf_bytes(data)	Fast detection from bytes
classify_pdf(path)	Lightweight classification (returns PdfClassification)
classify_pdf_bytes(data)	Lightweight classification from bytes
extract_text(path)	Plain text extraction
extract_text_bytes(data)	Plain text extraction from bytes
extract_text_with_positions(path, pages=None)	Text with X/Y coords and font info
extract_text_with_positions_bytes(data, pages=None)	Text with positions from bytes
extract_text_in_regions(path, page_regions)	Extract text in bounding-box regions
extract_text_in_regions_bytes(data, page_regions)	Region extraction from bytes
extract_pages_markdown(path, pages=None)	Per-page Markdown + layout metadata (all pages by default)
extract_pages_markdown_bytes(data, pages=None)	Per-page Markdown from bytes

Types

Type stubs (pdf_inspector.pyi) ship with the package. Result types at a glance:

class PdfResult:                     # process_pdf / detect_pdf
    pdf_type: str                    # "text_based" | "scanned" | "image_based" | "mixed"
    markdown: str | None             # extracted Markdown (None for detect_pdf)
    page_count: int
    processing_time_ms: int
    pages_needing_ocr: list[int]
    title: str | None
    confidence: float                # 0.0 - 1.0
    is_complex_layout: bool
    pages_with_tables: list[int]
    pages_with_columns: list[int]
    has_encoding_issues: bool        # broken font encodings — consider OCR fallback

class PdfClassification:             # classify_pdf
    pdf_type: str
    page_count: int
    pages_needing_ocr: list[int]     # 0-indexed
    confidence: float

class TextItem:                      # extract_text_with_positions
    text: str
    x: float
    y: float
    width: float
    height: float
    font: str
    font_size: float
    page: int
    is_bold: bool
    is_italic: bool
    is_underline: bool
    is_strikeout: bool
    item_type: str

class PageRegionTexts:               # extract_text_in_regions
    page: int                        # 0-indexed
    regions: list[RegionText]        # RegionText: text: str, needs_ocr: bool

class PagesExtractionResult:         # extract_pages_markdown
    pages: list[PageMarkdown]        # PageMarkdown: page (0-indexed), markdown, needs_ocr
    pages_with_tables: list[int]     # 1-indexed
    pages_with_columns: list[int]    # 1-indexed
    pages_needing_ocr: list[int]     # 1-indexed
    is_complex: bool                 # any page has tables or multi-column layout