Mistral OCR PDF extraction

Quick start (default)

python {baseDir}/scripts/mistral_ocr_extract.py --input path/to/file.pdf --out out/ocr

• combined.md

  (all pages concatenated)

• pages/page-000.md

  (per-page markdown)

• raw_response.json

  (full OCR response)

• images/

  (decoded embedded images, if requested)

• tables/

  (separate tables, if requested)

Workflow

1. Pick input mode
   • Local PDF (most common): upload via Files API, then OCR via

     file_id

     .
   • Public URL: OCR directly via

     document_url

     .
2. Choose output fidelity (defaults are safe for RAG)
   • Keep

     table_format=inline

     unless the user explicitly wants tables split out.
   • Set

     --include-image-base64

     when the user needs figures/diagrams extracted.
   • Use

     --extract-header/--extract-footer

     if header/footer noise hurts downstream search.
3. Run OCR
   • Use

     scripts/mistral_ocr_extract.py

     to produce a deterministic on-disk artefact set.
4. (Optional) Structured extraction from the whole document
   • If the user wants fields (invoice totals, contract parties, etc.), provide an annotation prompt.
   • The OCR API can return a document-level

     document_annotation

     in addition to page markdown.
   Example:
   bash

   python {baseDir}/scripts/mistral_ocr_extract.py \
     --input invoice.pdf \
     --out out/invoice \
     --annotation-prompt "Extract supplier_name, invoice_number, invoice_date (ISO-8601), currency, total_amount. Return JSON." \
     --annotation-format json_object

Decision rules

• If the PDF is local and not publicly accessible, upload it (the script does this automatically).
• If the PDF URL is private or requires authentication, do not pass it as

  document_url

  ; upload instead.
• If output quality is critical, prefer

  table_format=html

  for downstream parsing over brittle regex.

Common failure modes

• Missing

  MISTRAL_API_KEY

  : set it in the environment before running.
• URL OCR fails: the URL likely is not publicly accessible; upload the file.
• Large files: upload supports large files, but very large PDFs may need page selection (

  --pages

  ) or batch processing.

References

• API + parameters:

  references/mistral_ocr_api.md

• Output mapping rules (placeholders to extracted images/tables):

  references/output_mapping.md

• Example annotation prompts for common document types:

  references/annotation_prompts.md