Elixir
Extract text, tables, images, metadata, and code intelligence from 97 file formats and 306 programming languages including PDF, Office documents, images, and audio/video transcripts where native transcription is available. Elixir bindings with native BEAM concurrency, OTP integration, and idiomatic Elixir API.
What This Package Provides
- Document intelligence core — extract text, tables, images, metadata, entities, keywords, code intelligence, and transcripts in builds that enable transcription.
- Format coverage — PDF, Office, images, HTML/XML, email, archives, notebooks, citations, scientific formats, plain text, and audio/video formats in builds that enable transcription.
- OCR choices — Tesseract, PaddleOCR, Candle where supported, VLM OCR through liter-llm, and plugin hooks for custom backends.
- Same engine as every binding — Rust, Python, Node.js, Go, Java, PHP, Ruby, .NET, Elixir, WASM, Kotlin Android, Swift, Dart, Zig, and C FFI share the same Rust implementation.
- BEAM package — Rustler NIF binding for OTP pipelines.
Installation
Package Installation
Add to your mix.exs dependencies:
def deps do
[
{:xberg, "~> 1.0.0-rc.25"}
]
end
Then run:
mix deps.get
System Requirements
- Elixir 1.14+ and Erlang/OTP 26+ required
- Pre-compiled NIFs bundled via
rustler_precompiledfor macOS (arm64, x64), Linux (x64, arm64), and Windows (x64) - Optional: ONNX Runtime version 1.24+ for ORT-dependent inference features
- Optional: Tesseract OCR for OCR functionality
Quick Start
Basic Extraction
Extract text, metadata, and structure from any supported document format:
# Basic document extraction workflow
# Load file -> extract -> access results
{:ok, output} = Xberg.extract(input: %Xberg.ExtractInput{kind: :uri, uri: "document.pdf"}, config: nil)
result = List.first(output.results)
IO.puts("Extracted Content:")
IO.puts(result.content)
IO.puts("\nMetadata:")
IO.puts("Format: #{inspect(result.metadata.format)}")
IO.puts("Tables found: #{length(result.tables)}")
Common Use Cases
Extract with Custom Configuration
Most use cases benefit from configuration to control extraction behavior:
With OCR (for scanned documents):
Table Extraction
See Configuration Guide for table extraction options.
Processing Multiple Files
Async Processing
For non-blocking document processing:
Next Steps
- Installation Guide - Platform-specific setup
- API Documentation - Complete API reference
- Examples & Guides - Full code examples and usage guides
- Configuration Guide - Advanced configuration options
Features
Supported File Formats (96)
97 file formats across 8 major categories with intelligent format detection and comprehensive metadata extraction.
Office Documents
| Category | Formats | Capabilities |
|---|---|---|
| Word Processing | .docx, .docm, .doc, .dotx, .dotm, .dot, .odt, .pages | Full text, tables, images, metadata, styles |
| Spreadsheets | .xlsx, .xlsm, .xlsb, .xls, .xla, .xlam, .xltm, .xltx, .xlt, .ods, .numbers | Sheet data, formulas, cell metadata, charts |
| Presentations | .pptx, .pptm, .ppt, .ppsx, .potx, .potm, .pot, .odp, .key | Slides, speaker notes, images, metadata |
.pdf | Text, tables, images, metadata, OCR support | |
| eBooks | .epub, .fb2 | Chapters, metadata, embedded resources |
| Database | .dbf | Table data extraction, field type support |
| Hangul | .hwp, .hwpx | Korean document format, text extraction |
Images (OCR-Enabled)
| Category | Formats | Features |
|---|---|---|
| Raster | .png, .jpg, .jpeg, .gif, .webp, .bmp, .tiff, .tif | OCR, table detection, EXIF metadata, dimensions, color space |
| Advanced | .jp2, .jpx, .jpm, .mj2, .jbig2, .jb2, .pnm, .pbm, .pgm, .ppm | OCR via hayro-jpeg2000 (pure Rust decoder), JBIG2 support, table detection, format-specific metadata |
| HEIC family | .heic, .heics, .heif, .avif, .avcs | EXIF metadata, optional libheif pixel decoding |
| Vector | .svg | DOM parsing, embedded text, graphics metadata |
Audio & Video
| Category | Formats | Features |
|---|---|---|
| Audio | .mp3, .mpga, .m4a, .wav, .webm | Whisper transcription when native transcription is available |
| Video audio track | .mp4, .mpeg, .webm | Audio-track transcription only |
Web & Data
| Category | Formats | Features |
|---|---|---|
| Markup | .html, .htm, .xhtml, .xml, .svg | DOM parsing, metadata (Open Graph, Twitter Card), link extraction |
| Structured Data | .json, .yaml, .yml, .toml, .csv, .tsv | Schema detection, nested structures, validation |
| Text & Markdown | .txt, .md, .markdown, .djot, .mdx, .rst, .org, .rtf | CommonMark, GFM, Djot, MDX, reStructuredText, Org Mode |
Email & Archives
| Category | Formats | Features |
|---|---|---|
.eml, .msg, .pst | Headers, body (HTML/plain), attachments, threading | |
| Archives | .zip, .tar, .tgz, .gz, .7z | File listing, nested archives, metadata |
Academic & Scientific
| Category | Formats | Features |
|---|---|---|
| Citations | .bib, .ris, .nbib, .enw | Structured parsing: RIS, PubMed/MEDLINE, EndNote XML, BibTeX/BibLaTeX, CSL JSON by MIME type |
| Scientific | .tex, .latex, .typ, .typst, .jats, .ipynb | LaTeX, Typst, Jupyter notebooks, PubMed JATS |
| Publishing | .fb2, .docbook, .dbk, .docbook4, .docbook5, .opml | FictionBook, DocBook XML, OPML outlines |
| Documentation | MIME-only POD, mdoc, troff | Technical documentation formats |
Code Intelligence (306 Languages)
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| Structure Extraction | Functions, classes, methods, structs, interfaces, enums |
| Import/Export Analysis | Module dependencies, re-exports, wildcard imports |
| Symbol Extraction | Variables, constants, type aliases, properties |
| Docstring Parsing | Google, NumPy, Sphinx, JSDoc, RustDoc, and 10+ formats |
| Diagnostics | Parse errors with line/column positions |
| Syntax-Aware Chunking | Split code by semantic boundaries, not arbitrary byte offsets |
Powered by tree-sitter-language-pack — documentation.
Key Capabilities
- Text Extraction - Extract all text content with position and formatting information
- Metadata Extraction - Retrieve document properties, creation date, author, etc.
- Table Extraction - Parse tables with structure and cell content preservation
- Image Extraction - Extract embedded images and render page previews
- Audio/Video Transcription - Extract speech transcripts from MP3, M4A, WAV, WebM, and MP4 inputs when the native transcription feature is available
- OCR Support - Integrate multiple OCR backends for scanned documents
- Async/Await - Non-blocking document processing with concurrent operations
- Plugin System - Extensible post-processing for custom text transformation
- Embeddings - Generate vector embeddings using ONNX Runtime models or provider-hosted services
- Batch Processing - Efficiently process multiple documents in parallel
- Memory Efficient - Stream large files without loading entirely into memory
- Language Detection - Detect and support multiple languages in documents
- Code Intelligence - Extract structure, imports, exports, symbols, and docstrings from 306 programming languages via tree-sitter
- Configuration - Fine-grained control over extraction behavior
- Six Output Formats - Plain text, Markdown, Djot, HTML, JSON tree structure, or Structured JSON with OCR metadata
OCR Support
Xberg supports multiple OCR backends for extracting text from scanned documents and images:
Tesseract
Paddleocr
OCR Configuration Example
Async Support
This binding provides full async/await support for non-blocking document processing:
Plugin System
Xberg supports extensible post-processing plugins for custom text transformation and filtering.
For detailed plugin documentation, visit Plugin System Guide.
Plugin Example
alias Xberg.Plugin
# Word Count Post-Processor Plugin
# This post-processor automatically counts words in extracted content
# and adds the word count to the metadata.
defmodule MyApp.Plugins.WordCountProcessor do
@behaviour Xberg.Plugin.PostProcessor
require Logger
@impl true
def name do
"WordCountProcessor"
end
@impl true
def processing_stage do
:post
end
@impl true
def version do
"1.0.0"
end
@impl true
def initialize do
:ok
end
@impl true
def shutdown do
:ok
end
@impl true
def process(result, _options) do
content = result["content"] || ""
word_count = content
|> String.split(~r/\s+/, trim: true)
|> length()
# Update metadata with word count
metadata = Map.get(result, "metadata", %{})
updated_metadata = Map.put(metadata, "word_count", word_count)
{:ok, Map.put(result, "metadata", updated_metadata)}
end
end
# Register the word count post-processor
Plugin.register_post_processor(:word_count_processor, MyApp.Plugins.WordCountProcessor)
# Example usage
result = %{
"content" => "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. This is a sample document with multiple words.",
"metadata" => %{
"source" => "document.pdf",
"pages" => 1
}
}
case MyApp.Plugins.WordCountProcessor.process(result, %{}) do
{:ok, processed_result} ->
word_count = processed_result["metadata"]["word_count"]
IO.puts("Word count added: #{word_count} words")
IO.inspect(processed_result, label: "Processed Result")
{:error, reason} ->
IO.puts("Processing failed: #{reason}")
end
# List all registered post-processors
{:ok, processors} = Plugin.list_post_processors()
IO.inspect(processors, label: "Registered Post-Processors")
Embeddings Support
Generate vector embeddings for extracted text using the built-in ONNX Runtime support. Requires ONNX Runtime installation.
Batch Processing
Process multiple documents efficiently:
Configuration
For advanced configuration options including language detection, table extraction, OCR settings, and more:
Documentation
Contributing
Contributions are welcome! See Contributing Guide.
Part of Xberg.dev
- crawlberg — web crawling and scraping with HTML→Markdown and headless-Chrome fallback.
- html-to-markdown — fast, lossless HTML→Markdown engine.
- liter-llm — universal LLM API client with native bindings for 14 languages and 143 providers.
- tree-sitter-language-pack — tree-sitter grammars and code-intelligence primitives.
- alef — the polyglot binding generator that produces this README and all per-language bindings.
- Discord — community, roadmap, announcements.
License
MIT License — see LICENSE for details.
Support
- Discord Community: Join our Discord
- GitHub Issues: Report bugs
- Discussions: Ask questions