Docling Document Parser

Docling is a document parsing library that converts PDFs, Word documents, PowerPoint, images, and other formats into structured data with advanced layout understanding.

Quick Start

Basic document conversion:

from docling.document_converter import DocumentConverter

source = "https://arxiv.org/pdf/2408.09869"  # URL, Path, or BytesIO
converter = DocumentConverter()
result = converter.convert(source)
print(result.document.export_to_markdown())

Core Concepts

DocumentConverter

The main entry point for document conversion. Supports various input formats and conversion options.

from docling.document_converter import DocumentConverter
from docling.datamodel.base_models import InputFormat
from docling.document_converter import PdfFormatOption
from docling.datamodel.pipeline_options import PdfPipelineOptions

# Basic converter (all formats enabled)
converter = DocumentConverter()

# Restricted formats
converter = DocumentConverter(
    allowed_formats=[InputFormat.PDF, InputFormat.DOCX]
)

# Custom pipeline options
pipeline_options = PdfPipelineOptions()
pipeline_options.do_ocr = True
pipeline_options.do_table_structure = True

converter = DocumentConverter(
    format_options={
        InputFormat.PDF: PdfFormatOption(pipeline_options=pipeline_options)
    }
)

ConversionResult

All conversion operations return a ConversionResult containing:

• document: The parsed DoclingDocument
• status: ConversionStatus.SUCCESS, PARTIAL_SUCCESS, or FAILURE
• errors: List of errors encountered during conversion
• input: Information about the source document

result = converter.convert("document.pdf")

if result.status == ConversionStatus.SUCCESS:
    markdown = result.document.export_to_markdown()
    html = result.document.export_to_html()
    data = result.document.export_to_dict()

Supported Formats

Input Formats

• Documents: PDF, DOCX, PPTX, XLSX
• Markup: HTML, Markdown, AsciiDoc
• Data: CSV, JSON (Docling format)
• Images: PNG, JPEG, TIFF, BMP, WEBP
• Audio: WAV, MP3
• Video Text: WebVTT
• Schema-specific: USPTO XML, JATS XML, METS-GBS

Output Formats

• Markdown: export_to_markdown() or save_as_markdown()
• HTML: export_to_html() or save_as_html()
• JSON: export_to_dict() or save_as_json() (note: no export_to_json() method)
• Text: export_to_text() or export_to_markdown(strict_text=True) or save_as_markdown(strict_text=True)
• DocTags: export_to_doctags() or save_as_doctags()

Common Patterns

Single File Conversion

from docling.document_converter import DocumentConverter

converter = DocumentConverter()
result = converter.convert("document.pdf")

# Export to different formats
markdown = result.document.export_to_markdown()
html = result.document.export_to_html()
json_data = result.document.export_to_dict()

# Or save directly to file
result.document.save_as_markdown("output.md")
result.document.save_as_html("output.html")
result.document.save_as_json("output.json")

Batch Processing

See references/batch.md for details on convert_all().

URL Conversion

converter = DocumentConverter()
result = converter.convert("https://example.com/document.pdf")

Binary Stream Conversion

from io import BytesIO
from docling.datamodel.base_models import DocumentStream

with open("document.pdf", "rb") as f:
    buf = BytesIO(f.read())

source = DocumentStream(name="document.pdf", stream=buf)
result = converter.convert(source)

Format-Specific Options

from docling.datamodel.base_models import InputFormat
from docling.datamodel.pipeline_options import PdfPipelineOptions
from docling.document_converter import DocumentConverter, PdfFormatOption

# Configure PDF-specific options
pipeline_options = PdfPipelineOptions()
pipeline_options.do_ocr = True
pipeline_options.ocr_options.lang = ["en", "es"]
pipeline_options.do_table_structure = True
pipeline_options.generate_page_images = True

converter = DocumentConverter(
    format_options={
        InputFormat.PDF: PdfFormatOption(pipeline_options=pipeline_options)
    }
)

Resource Limits

converter = DocumentConverter()

# Limit file size (bytes) and page count
result = converter.convert(
    "large_document.pdf",
    max_file_size=20_971_520,  # 20 MB
    max_num_pages=100
)

Document Chunking

See references/chunking.md for RAG integration.

DoclingDocument Structure

The DoclingDocument is a Pydantic model representing parsed content:

# Access document structure
doc = result.document

# Content items (lists)
doc.texts         # TextItem instances (paragraphs, headings, etc.)
doc.tables        # TableItem instances
doc.pictures      # PictureItem instances
doc.key_value_items  # Key-value pairs

# Structure (tree nodes)
doc.body          # Main content hierarchy
doc.furniture     # Headers, footers, page numbers
doc.groups        # Lists, chapters, sections

# Iterate all elements in reading order
for item, level in doc.iterate_items():
    print(f"{'  ' * level}{item.label}: {item.text[:50]}")

Advanced Features

OCR Configuration

from docling.datamodel.pipeline_options import (
    PdfPipelineOptions,
    EasyOcrOptions,
    TesseractOcrOptions,
    TesseractCliOcrOptions,
    OcrMacOptions,
    RapidOcrOptions
)

# EasyOCR (default)
pipeline_options = PdfPipelineOptions()
pipeline_options.do_ocr = True
pipeline_options.ocr_options = EasyOcrOptions(lang=["en", "de"])

# Tesseract
pipeline_options = PdfPipelineOptions()
pipeline_options.do_ocr = True
pipeline_options.ocr_options = TesseractOcrOptions(lang=["eng", "deu"])

# RapidOCR
pipeline_options = PdfPipelineOptions()
pipeline_options.do_ocr