Amazon Textract
Amazon Textract
Amazon Textract is a document OCR and structured extraction service — recognizes forms, tables, and signatures far beyond traditional OCR.
Tables preserved with row/column structure
Handwriting accuracy lags printed text
Call Textract.analyzeDocument (sync, small docs) or startDocumentAnalysis (async, large PDFs). Results return as a tree of blocks (page, line, word, key, value, cell, etc.).
Uptime · 30-day window
GitHub activity
About this API
Textract's key advantage over traditional OCR is structured output. Plain OCR turns images into plain text; Textract additionally tells you which row/column of which table the text sits in, which key maps to which value, and which lines form a paragraph. That makes invoice, form, and contract analysis tractable without elaborate post-processing.
It comes in several modes. DetectDocumentText is plain OCR. AnalyzeDocument adds FORMS (key/value), TABLES, and SIGNATURES. AnalyzeExpense handles invoices and receipts. AnalyzeID handles IDs, passports, and driver's licenses. Every mode returns a block tree — developers walk the tree to reassemble business structure (e.g. stitch table cells into a 2D array).
Asian-language support including Chinese is limited; Textract serves English-document workflows best. For high-volume Chinese document processing, evaluate Chinese-cloud OCR services in parallel.
What you can build
- 1Automate invoice and receipt entry
- 2Extract structured data from PDF tables
- 3Bulk-parse resumes
- 4Pull info from KYC documents
Strengths & limitations
Strengths
- Tables preserved with row/column structure
- Forms parsed as key/value pairs
- Dedicated Invoices / Receipts analysis modes
Limitations
- Handwriting accuracy lags printed text
- Limited support for Asian languages including Chinese
- Per-page pricing — high-volume document processing is expensive
Getting started
Call Textract.analyzeDocument (sync, small docs) or startDocumentAnalysis (async, large PDFs). Results return as a tree of blocks (page, line, word, key, value, cell, etc.).
FAQ
How is it priced?+
Per page — plain OCR ~$1.50/1000 pages; FORMS/TABLES mode ~$15–50/1000. Specialized modes (AnalyzeExpense) cost more.
Does it work for Chinese?+
Limited. Printed Chinese is sometimes recognized but accuracy drops for complex layouts and tables compared with English.
How do I handle large PDFs?+
Use startDocumentAnalysis as an async job with an SNS notification. Results paginate — iterate NextToken to fetch everything.
Technical details
- Auth type
- api_key
- Pricing
- paid
- Protocols
- REST
- SDKs
- python, javascript, java, go, ruby, csharp
- Response time
- 42 ms
- Last health check
- 6/26/2026, 6:22:16 AM
Endpoints
Parsed from the OpenAPI spec. Showing 12 of 13 non-deprecated endpoints.
/#X-Amz-Target=Textract.AnalyzeDocument/#X-Amz-Target=Textract.AnalyzeExpense/#X-Amz-Target=Textract.AnalyzeID/#X-Amz-Target=Textract.DetectDocumentText/#X-Amz-Target=Textract.GetDocumentAnalysis/#X-Amz-Target=Textract.GetDocumentTextDetection/#X-Amz-Target=Textract.GetExpenseAnalysis/#X-Amz-Target=Textract.GetLendingAnalysis/#X-Amz-Target=Textract.GetLendingAnalysisSummary/#X-Amz-Target=Textract.StartDocumentAnalysis/#X-Amz-Target=Textract.StartDocumentTextDetection/#X-Amz-Target=Textract.StartExpenseAnalysis1 more endpoints not shown. See the OpenAPI spec for the full list.
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