Unstructured-IO / Unstructured-IO/unstructured

bug/pdf-extraction-bug

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bug
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Description

Describe the bug
While partition_pdf or partition(text.. ) this method is working for docx, txt however for some pdfs it is not parsing well especially academic papers.

To Reproduce
elements = self._partition(**self._build_partition_kwargs(loaded))

Expected behavior
Should return a simple text inside the elements list with some metadata.

Screenshots

Image
**Environment Info**
name = "unstructured"
version = "0.17.2"
description = "A library that prepares raw documents for downstream ML tasks."
optional = false
python-versions = ">=3.9.0"
groups = ["main"]
files = [
    {file = "unstructured-0.17.2-py3-none-any.whl", hash = ..
    {file = "unstructured-0.17.2.tar.gz", hash = ..

Additional context
I will upload the pdf example that is not working.

2025.findings-naacl.114.pdf

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start by reproducing the issue with the linked 2025.findings-naacl.114.pdf and inspect the partition_pdf path around self._partition(**self._build_partition_kwargs(loaded)). Compare the returned elements with the expected text and metadata, then add a regression test once the parsing failure is isolated.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
python
Domain
data
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Needs clarification
Newbie friendliness
25/100

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