Getting Started

LiteParse is available for Node.js, Python, and as a standalone Rust binary.

All versions (except WASM) ship the same CLI and core library capabilities.

Installation

Node.js / TypeScript

npm i -g @llamaindex/liteparse

Python

pip install liteparse

Rust

cargo install liteparse

Browser (WASM)

npm i @llamaindex/liteparse-wasm

Since the WASM package is designed for browser usage, it does not include the lit CLI command. Instead, you can use the exported functions directly from JavaScript to parse documents in the browser environment.

For full browser usage and limitations, see the WASM package guide.

Quick start

Once installed, parse from the command line:

# Parse a PDF and print text to stdout
lit parse document.pdf

# Save output to a file
lit parse document.pdf -o output.txt

# Get structured JSON with bounding boxes
lit parse document.pdf --format json -o output.json

# Render to Markdown (headings, tables, lists, images, links)
lit parse document.pdf --format markdown -o output.md

# Parse only specific pages
lit parse document.pdf --target-pages "1-5,10,15-20"

Batch parsing

Parse an entire directory of documents at once:

lit batch-parse ./pdfs ./outputs

Screenshots

Generate page images from a PDF for LLM agents or visual workflows:

lit screenshot document.pdf -o ./screenshots

Next steps

• Markdown output: Render documents to clean, structured Markdown.
• Library usage: Use LiteParse programmatically from TypeScript or Python.
• OCR configuration: Configure Tesseract, use an external OCR server, or bring your own.
• Multi-format support: Parse DOCX, XLSX, PPTX, images, and more.
• Document complexity: Check whether a document needs OCR / heavy processing before parsing, and route accordingly.
• Browser usage (WASM): Run LiteParse entirely in the browser.
• Agent skill: Add LiteParse as a skill for coding agents.
• CLI reference: Complete command and option reference.