PDF OCR
Apply OCR to scanned PDF documents, making them searchable and selectable.
Try PDF to PDF (OCR) in the browser →
Convert.FAST uses this same API — what you see in the browser is what you get in code.
Quick reference
| Job type | document.pdf-ocr |
| targetFormat | pdf-ocr |
| Category | documents |
| Input formats | .pdf |
| Output extension | .pdf |
| Costing | 1 credit per page |
| Cost by ocr mode | Fast: 1 credits/page (default) · Quality: 5 credits/page |
| Max file size | 1 GB |
| Max pages | 1000 |
Example
# 1) Submit
JOB_ID=$(curl -sS -X POST "https://api.tools.fast/convert" \
-H "X-Fast-Api-Key: $API_KEY" \
-F "file=@document.pdf" \
-F "targetFormat=pdf-ocr" | jq -r '.id')
# → 202 Accepted: {"id": "019e3a7b-...", "status": "Queued"}
# 2) Poll until terminal status
while true; do
RESPONSE=$(curl -sS "https://api.tools.fast/convert/job/${JOB_ID}" \
-H "X-Fast-Api-Key: $API_KEY")
STATUS=$(echo "$RESPONSE" | jq -r '.status')
[ "${STATUS}" = "Succeeded" ] && break
[ "${STATUS}" = "Failed" ] || [ "${STATUS}" = "Canceled" ] && { echo "$RESPONSE" | jq; exit 1; }
sleep 1
done
# 3) Download
curl -sS "https://api.tools.fast/convert/job/${JOB_ID}/download" \
-H "X-Fast-Api-Key: $API_KEY" \
-o "document.pdf"
# → Binary file (application/pdf, 600.0 KB)Options
This converter does not support additional options.
Cost estimate
curl -sS "https://api.tools.fast/convert/estimate/pdf/pdf-ocr?pageCount=50"
# With ocr mode variant (Quality)
curl -sS "https://api.tools.fast/convert/estimate/pdf/pdf-ocr?pageCount=50&variant=quality"