OCR Plugin Setting Problems

Need help Plugins
1

Hello Bubbler’s ,

I’m currently testing both your Free OCR Service and PDF.co plugins on Bubble.
Everything seems properly configured (API key active, URL reachable, workflow triggered), but the plugins are not returning any text from uploaded PDFs.

Here’s a summary of the setup and issue:

Environment:

  • Bubble app using “FileUploader A” element

  • Action: Free OCR Service – Extract Text

  • Input: FileUploader A's value's URL

  • API key: working and verified on OCR.space / PDF.co dashboard

  • Response fields: “Extracted text” returns empty (no error message)

  • Tested file:

    https://c44ab259a394dd5e5921439bf776e52d.cdn.bubble.io/f1762953512390x704419736461483500/Hande%20cv%202016_1.pdf

  • Same issue with other simple text-based PDFs.

Expected behavior:
The plugin should return recognized text (ParsedText) inside “Extracted text” or “ParsedResults”.

What was tested:

  • Different Bubble fields (Extracted text, :first item, formatted as text)

  • Direct API initialization from plugin editor (same empty result)

  • API key and service verified as active on OCR.space directly.

Question:
Could you please check whether there’s a current issue with text extraction from direct Bubble file URLs, or if the plugin requires a specific file type, encoding, or header (e.g., Base64) for proper OCR processing?

Any guidance or updated plugin version would be very helpful.

Thank you very much for your support,
Best regards,
Angelo Bari

2

Not sure about that plugin, but I can guarantee that this one can extract text pretty easy:

We use it at our dev agency for extracting text from doc/pdf files.

Let me know if you need help setting it up.

Alex from FM Studio

3

Hello @angelobari ,

Thanks for reaching out. :pray:

This sounds like it could be a timing issue. When a file is uploaded through Bubble’s FileUploader, there’s often a slight delay before the file is fully processed and available in Bubble’s file manager. If the OCR action fires immediately after the upload, the file URL might not be fully ready yet, which would explain why you’re getting empty results even though everything else is configured correctly.

Try this:

Add a small delay (200-500ms pause) in your workflow between when the file upload completes and when the OCR extraction action fires. This gives Bubble’s file manager time to fully process and host the file before the plugin tries to access it.

Your workflow should look something like:

  1. When FileUploader A’s upload finished
  2. Pause workflow
  3. Free OCR Service - Extract Text (using FileUploader A’s value’s URL)

This is a pretty common issue with file processing plugins in Bubble, and a brief pause usually resolves it.

Looking forward to your reply. :pray:

Best regards,
Support Team
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