Use the Read API

  • 3 minutes

To use the Read API, call the Read REST function (or equivalent SDK method), passing the image URL or binary data, and optionally specifying the language the text is written in (with a default value of en for English).

The Read function returns an operation ID, which you can use in a subsequent call to the Get Read Results function in order to retrieve details of the text that has been read. Depending on the volume of text, you may need to poll the Get Read Results function multiple times before the operation is complete.

The results of from the Read API are broken down by page, then line, and then word. Additionally, the text values are included at both the line and word levels, making it easier to read entire lines of text if you don't need to extract text at the individual word level.

{
  "status": "succeeded",
  "createdDateTime": "2019-10-03T14:32:04Z",
  "lastUpdatedDateTime": "2019-10-03T14:38:14Z",
  "analyzeResult": {
    "version": "v3.0",
    "readResults": [
      {
        "page": 1,
        "language": "en",
        "angle": 49.59, "width": 600,
        "height": 400, "unit": "pixel",
        "lines": [
          {
            "boundingBox": [
              20,61,204,64,204,84,20,81],
            "text": "Hello world!",
            "words": [
              {
                "boundingBox": [
                  20,62,48,62,48,83,20,82],
                "text": "Hello",
                "confidence": 0.91
              },
              {
                "boundingBox": [
                  51,62,105,63,105,83,51,83],
                "text": "world!",
                "confidence": 0.164
              }
            ]
          }
        ]
      }
    ]
  }
}