Quickstart

Get your first OCR API call working in under 5 minutes.

Step 1: Get Your API Key

Sign up at pictotext.io
Go to Dashboard → API Keys
Click Generate New Key
Copy your key (starts with sk-)

Step 2: Make Your First Request

Using cURL

curl -X POST "https://pictotext.io/api/v1/ocr" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \
  -F "[email protected]" \
  -F "documentType=cn_id_card"

Using JavaScript

const formData = new FormData();
formData.append('image', fileInput.files[0]);
formData.append('documentType', 'cn_id_card');

const response = await fetch('https://pictotext.io/api/v1/ocr', {
  method: 'POST',
  headers: {
    'Authorization': 'Bearer YOUR_API_KEY'
  },
  body: formData
});

const data = await response.json();
console.log(data);

Using Python

import requests

url = 'https://pictotext.io/api/v1/ocr'
headers = {'Authorization': 'Bearer YOUR_API_KEY'}

with open('document.jpg', 'rb') as f:
    files = {'image': f}
    data = {'documentType': 'cn_id_card'}

    response = requests.post(url, headers=headers, files=files, data=data)
    result = response.json()
    print(result)

Step 3: Understand the Response

Success response (200):

{
  "name": "张三",
  "gender": "男",
  "ethnicity": "汉",
  "dateOfBirth": "1990-01-01",
  "address": "北京市朝阳区",
  "idNumber": "110101199001011234"
}

That's It!

You've successfully extracted data from an ID card.

Next Steps

📋 Browse supported documents - See what else you can extract
📖 Read the API reference - Complete endpoint documentation

Common Issues

401 Unauthorized: Check your API key format - should be Bearer YOUR_API_KEY

400 Invalid Document Type: Use a valid type like cn_id_card, not auto

Image Upload Failed: Ensure your image is JPG, PNG, GIF, or WebP format

Need help? Contact [email protected]

Documentation