How to read the content of a PDF automatically with an Artificial Intelligence API
We already know that there are several platforms that help us chat with PDF files. ChatGPT is one of them, we just have to upload the desired file and wait for OpenAI’s AI to understand its content.
The question now is how can I automate this process? how I can automatically read a PDF What do I receive by email, or what is saved in a folder, so that an AI can read it and transform it into something structured?
I recently came across that question in a project that aimed to read PDF files of invoices to automatically and intelligently extract the information and save them to the appropriate database. Imagine the usefulness of the topic: we create a program that collects email invoices, which send them to an Artificial Intelligence to extract in a structured way the content and we send each corresponding field to the program that manages the invoices.
If we try it in the traditional way, entering the file in search of information, we will find that each invoice has a different format, and since there is no intelligence to know if what the supplier or the client is reading, the project will fail. If we send it to an AI like ChatGPT or another, we will have a better chance of success, since they know how to understand the content.
The fact is that to do something like that we need an API that is capable of entering a PDF, and the GPT API at the moment does not do that. That is why I leave you here with three options:
– Use the ChatPDF API. ChatPDF is an AI platform that allows us to chat with PDF files, and has a free API to use up to 500 messages and 5000 pages per month. We can use this tool to enter the attached PDFs and extract the information with specific prompts.
– The API www.convertapi.com/pdf-to-txt, which allows us to enter a PDF file and convert it to text. Once we have it in text, we can send it to the ChatGPT API so that it can process and understand it.
– The IlovePDF Developer API: my favorite platform for managing PDFs has a section for developers, and in it we can read information about the API to work with PDF files, so we will have to play with it to transform the PDF file into something that the GPT API can understand.
As you see, there are options. In fact, if you look for APIs that transform PDF into text, you will see that there are many on the market, so I leave you the homework so that you can choose the one that best suits your project.