Documentation
The PDF API parses PDF files from a URL or uploaded directly, extracting text, images, and metadata. Supports both HTML and plain text output formats.
PDF API

The PDF API provides two methods to parse PDFs: from a URL or by uploading a file directly.

Authentication

All requests must be authenticated with your API key using a Bearer token:

Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY

Credits

Each successful PDF API call uses 5 credits per page. For example, a 10-page PDF would use 50 credits.

Parse PDF from URL (GET)

To parse a PDF from a URL, perform a GET request to the following URL:

https://www.instaparser.com/api/1/pdf
Query Parameters
Parameter Type Description
url string URL of the PDF file to parse.
output string (Optional) Output format. Either "html" (default) or "text".
use_cache bool (Optional) Specify if use of cache is permitted. Defaults to true. If set to the string "false", the cache is bypassed.


Upload PDF (POST)

To parse a PDF file directly, perform a POST request to the following URL:

https://www.instaparser.com/api/1/pdf
Request body

Send a multipart form-data request with the following parameters:

Parameter Type Description
file file PDF file to parse (required).
url string (Optional) URL reference for the PDF file.
output string (Optional) Output format. Either "html" (default) or "text".
use_cache bool (Optional) Specify if use of cache is permitted. Defaults to true. If set to the string "false", the cache is bypassed.


On success, both APIs return a JSON dictionary containing the following keys:

Key Description
url URL of the PDF (for URL API) or empty string (for File API)
title Title
site_name Website Name
thumbnail Thumbnail Image
description PDF description
author Author's Name
date Published date (UNIX time)
html HTML with body of PDF (present when output is "html")
text Plain text body of PDF (present when output is "text")
words Number of words in the PDF
is_rtl Always false for PDFs
images List of images in the PDF
videos Always empty array for PDFs


Possible status codes:

Code Reason
200 Success
400 Parameter missing or malformed
401 API key is invalid
403 Account suspended (payment error)
409 Exceeded monthly calls (Trial plan only)
412 Upstream parsing error or invalid response from parser
429 Rate limit exceeded