PDFPipe
Guides

Power Automate Integration

Convert PDFs to structured data inside Microsoft Power Automate using the PDFPipe API. This guide walks through the complete setup using the built-in HTTP action — no custom connector required.

Prerequisites: A PDFPipe account with an API key and a Power Automate Premium or Per-User licence (required for the HTTP action).
1

Create a new flow

Open Power Automate and create a new Automated cloud flow or Instant cloud flow. Choose a trigger that provides a PDF URL, for example:

  • SharePoint — "When a file is created or modified"
  • Outlook — "When a new email arrives" (with PDF attachment links)
  • Manual trigger — for testing
2

Add an HTTP action to call PDFPipe

Add a new step and search for the HTTP action (built-in). Configure it:

  • Method: POST
  • URI: https://api.pdfpipe.dev/v1/convert
  • Headers:
    Authorization: Bearer pk_live_your_key_here
    Content-Type: application/json

Set the Body to:

HTTP action body
{
  "url": "@{triggerOutputs()?['body/Link']}",
  "format": "json"
}

Replace the dynamic expression with the URL from your trigger. Use "format": "text" or "markdown" if you prefer a different output.

3

Handle the response

For small PDFs (<10 MB), you'll get a synchronous 200 response with a resultUrl. Add a Parse JSON action after the HTTP step to extract the fields.

For larger files, the response is 202 with a pollUrl. Add a Do Until loop:

  1. Inside the loop, add an HTTP GET action to https://api.pdfpipe.dev@{body('Convert_PDF')?['pollUrl']}
  2. Set the loop condition to continue until status equals complete
  3. Add a Delay of 5 seconds between iterations
Do Until condition expression
@equals(body('Poll_Status')?['status'], 'complete')
4

Use the result

Once the status is complete, use the resultUrl in a follow-up HTTP GET action to download the converted data. From there you can:

  • Save the JSON output to SharePoint or OneDrive
  • Send extracted text via Teams or Outlook
  • Insert rows into Excel or Dataverse
  • Pass data to AI Builder or Copilot for further processing
5

Error handling (recommended)

Wrap your HTTP actions in a Scope action and add a parallel branch with "Configure run after" set to "has failed". This lets you log errors or send notifications when a conversion fails.

PDFPipe returns structured error codes (see the error reference) that you can parse to determine whether to retry or alert.

Tips

  • Store your API key in a Power Automate Environment Variable or Azure Key Vault rather than hard-coding it.
  • For batch processing multiple PDFs, see the Batch Processing guide.
  • Use "format": "markdown" when feeding results to AI Builder or GPT-based Copilot actions.