Large document triage

Use this recipe when a large document is slow to inspect, hard to validate manually, or needs a support-ready diagnostics packet.

This workflow is optimized for support and triage:

1. Upload the document.
2. Capture document metadata.
3. Check document properties.
4. Verify text extraction and search behavior.
5. Render a first-page preview image.
6. Bundle the results into an escalation packet.

Triage checklist

Use these endpoints in order:

• Upload the document — POST /viewer/documents
• Fetch document information — GET /viewer/documents/{documentId}/document_info
• Fetch document properties — GET /viewer/documents/{documentId}/properties
• Search the document — GET /viewer/documents/{documentId}/search
• Fetch page text — GET /viewer/documents/{documentId}/pages/{pageIndex}/text
• Render a first-page preview — GET /viewer/documents/{documentId}/pages/{pageIndex}/image

Recommended workflow

Follow these steps to understand a document’s shape, identify potential issues, and gather the necessary data for support escalation if needed.

1. Upload the document

Start by uploading the file and saving the returned document_id:

curl -X POST https://api.nutrient.io/viewer/documents \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer <api_key>" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/pdf" \
  --data-binary @large-document.pdf \
  --fail

Response:

{
  "data": {
    "document_id": "<document_id>",
    "title": "large-document"
  }
}

2. Capture document information

Fetch top-level document information:

curl -X GET "https://api.nutrient.io/viewer/documents/<document_id>/document_info" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer <api_key>" \
  --fail

Use this response to confirm:

• Page count
• Page dimensions
• Permissions
• Metadata such as author, title, producer, and modification dates

This is the fastest way to understand the document’s shape before deeper inspection.

3. Capture document properties

Fetch document properties:

curl -X GET "https://api.nutrient.io/viewer/documents/<document_id>/properties" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer <api_key>" \
  --fail

This is useful for support triage because it includes details such as:

• Byte size
• Password-protection status
• Source PDF SHA-256
• Storage type
• Created-at timestamp

4. Check text extraction and search

If the issue involves missing or suspicious text, inspect the first page’s extracted text:

curl -X GET "https://api.nutrient.io/viewer/documents/<document_id>/pages/0/text" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer <api_key>" \
  --fail

Then run a targeted search against a known word or phrase from the file:

curl -G "https://api.nutrient.io/viewer/documents/<document_id>/search" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer <api_key>" \
  --data-urlencode "q=invoice" \
  --fail

Use these together:

• If text extraction is empty or clearly wrong, the issue may be with the source file, OCR quality, or embedded text layer.
• If the page text looks correct but search results are unexpected, include both responses in your escalation.

5. Render a first-page preview image

Render page 0 as a PNG preview:

curl -X GET "https://api.nutrient.io/viewer/documents/<document_id>/pages/0/image?width=1600" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer <api_key>" \
  -H "Accept: image/png" \
  --fail \
  -o page-0.png

This preview helps support confirm whether the problem is visible in server-side rendering without needing the full browser integration.

Escalation packet

For a support-ready packet, include:

• The original input file, if shareable
• The returned document_id
• document_info response
• properties response
• One page-text response from an affected page
• One representative search response
• The rendered first-page preview image
• A short note describing the expected result versus the observed result

Complete Node.js example

For a script that automates this workflow and writes the outputs to disk, refer to the Node.js large document triage example.

Related guides

• Upload documents
• Support