How do I send a TIFF file to an OCR API?

To send a TIFF file to an OCR API, you usually do one of these:

1. Upload the file as binary/form-data
2. Base64-encode the TIFF and send it in JSON
3. Provide a public URL to the TIFF if the API supports remote fetch

The exact method depends on the OCR API, but multipart/form-data upload is the most common.

Example: curl with multipart upload

curl -X POST "https://api.example.com/ocr" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \
  -F "file=@document.tiff"

Example: Python requests

import requests

url = "https://api.example.com/ocr"
headers = {"Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_API_KEY"}

with open("document.tiff", "rb") as f:
    files = {"file": ("document.tiff", f, "image/tiff")}
    response = requests.post(url, headers=headers, files=files)

print(response.status_code)
print(response.text)

If the API expects base64 in JSON

import base64
import requests

with open("document.tiff", "rb") as f:
    encoded = base64.b64encode(f.read()).decode("utf-8")

payload = {
    "filename": "document.tiff",
    "mime_type": "image/tiff",
    "content_base64": encoded
}

response = requests.post(
    "https://api.example.com/ocr",
    json=payload,
    headers={"Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_API_KEY"}
)
print(response.text)

Important TIFF notes

• Some OCR APIs do not accept TIFF directly and require PDF, PNG, or JPEG.
• TIFF can be multi-page; confirm whether the API supports:
  • single-page TIFF only
  • multi-page TIFF
  • one page at a time
• Make sure the MIME type is set correctly:
  • image/tiff

If the API rejects TIFF

Convert it first:

ImageMagick

magick input.tiff output.png

Python (Pillow)

from PIL import Image

img = Image.open("document.tiff")
img.save("document.png")

If you tell me which OCR API you’re using, I can give you the exact request format.