> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.pdf4llm.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# API

> Complete reference for all PyMuPDF4LLM functions and classes.

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## Extraction Functions

The three primary extraction functions share a common interface — they all accept a document path or `pymupdf.Document` instance, support the `pages` parameter for partial extraction, and handle OCR automatically.

<CardGroup cols={1}>
  <Card title="to_markdown()" icon="markdown" href="/python/api/to_markdown">
    Extract content as a Markdown string or per-page chunk dictionaries. The primary function for LLM ingestion and RAG pipelines.
  </Card>

  <Card title="to_json()" icon="brackets-curly" href="/python/api/to_json">
    Extract content as structured JSON with bounding boxes, font metadata, and layout data for every block on the page.
  </Card>

  <Card title="to_text()" icon="align-left" href="/python/api/to_text">
    Extract content as plain text, stripped of all Markdown syntax.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

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## Analysis Functions

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  <Card title="use_layout()" icon="table-columns" href="/python/api/use_layout">
    Analyse the visual layout of a document and return detected regions — columns, headers, figures, sidebars — with reading order and bounding boxes.
  </Card>

  <Card title="get_key_values()" icon="text-size" href="/python/api/get_key_values">
    Extract every word in the document as an individual dictionary with its bounding box and positional indices. Used for redaction, search, and ML pipelines.
  </Card>
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## Classes

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  <Card title="LlamaMarkdownReader" icon="database" href="/python/api/llamamarkdownreader">
    A LlamaIndex `BaseReader` implementation. Loads documents as `Document` objects for use in LlamaIndex pipelines and vector stores.
  </Card>

  <Card title="IdentifyHeaders" icon="rectangle" href="/python/api/identifyheaders">
    Detects repeating page headers and footers. Returns bounding boxes and a `get_margins()` helper for passing directly to extraction functions.
  </Card>

  <Card title="TocHeaders" icon="list" href="/python/api/tocheaders">
    Extracts heading hierarchy from an embedded table of contents or infers it from font sizes. Returns a structured list of heading entries with levels and page numbers.
  </Card>
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## Utilities

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  <Card title="version" icon="tag" href="/python/api/version">
    Returns the version string for PyMuPDF4LLM.
  </Card>
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## Quick Reference

| Function / Class                  | Returns               | Key Parameters                                       |
| --------------------------------- | --------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------- |
| `to_markdown()`                   | `str` or `list[dict]` | `pages`, `page_chunks`, `use_layout`, `write_images` |
| `to_json()`                       | `list[dict]`          | `pages`, `margins`                                   |
| `to_text()`                       | `str` or `list[dict]` | `pages`, `page_chunks`, `page_separator`             |
| `use_layout()`                    | `list[dict]`          | `pages`, `margins`                                   |
| `get_key_values()`                | `list[dict]`          | `pages`, `force_ocr`                                 |
| `LlamaMarkdownReader.load_data()` | `list[Document]`      | `file`, `pages`, `extra_info`                        |
| `IdentifyHeaders.get_margins()`   | `tuple`               | `body_limit`                                         |
| `TocHeaders.headers`              | `list[dict]`          | `body_limit`                                         |
| `version`                         | `str`                 | —                                                    |