Scanned invoices, faxed forms, or screenshots saved as PDFs—they look like documents, but the text is just pixels. You can’t select it, copy it, or feed it into your Zap. The workaround: run OCR first to make the PDF searchable, then extract the text. Here’s a three-step Zap that does exactly that, using Dropbox and PDF4me.
You have PDFs in Dropbox, SharePoint, or email—some are plain text, others are scanned or image-based—and you need the text out in one reliable flow. The catch: image-based PDFs have no selectable text. They need OCR first. Once they're searchable, PDF4me Extract Text and Images pulls everything in one call—no second read, no wasted API credits.
This guide walks you through a flow that handles both: trigger → get file content (Dropbox) → Convert PDF to editable PDF using OCR (for scanned docs) → Extract Text and Images (PDF4me). You get the exact output structure and links to troubleshoot and try the API yourself.