Extract text from invoices in Node.js.

01 / INSTALL AND GET A KEY

npm install pennyocr
export PENNYOCR_API_KEY=pk_live_...

02 / READ AN INVOICE

import PennyOCR from "pennyocr";

const client = new PennyOCR();
const result = await client.ocr("invoice.pdf");  // markdown, tables as HTML
console.log(result.text);

03 / PLAIN TEXT + AMOUNT PARSING

const { text } = await client.ocr("invoice.pdf", { format: "text" });
const amounts = [...text.matchAll(/\d+\.\d{2}/g)].map((m) => parseFloat(m[0]));
const total = Math.max(...amounts);
console.log({ total });

04 / IN AN API ROUTE (MULTER/BUSBOY NOT REQUIRED)

The SDK accepts Buffers and Blobs, so uploads pass straight through:

app.post("/parse-invoice", async (req, res) => {
  const buf = await getRawBody(req);           // however you collect the upload
  const result = await client.ocr(buf, { filename: "upload.pdf" });
  res.json({ pages: result.pages, text: result.text, cost: result.cost_usd });
});