Packing list OCR API that reads every carton, weight and volume

A packing list is a shipping document, prepared by the exporter or seller, that details how a shipment is packed. For each package, it typically shows the package number and marks, the items and quantities it contains, the net and gross weights and the dimensions, along with the total number of packages, the total weight and the total volume. Freight forwarders use it to book space and plan loading, customs use it to inspect the goods, and the consignee uses it to check the delivery on arrival. Mindee extracts all these details, package by package, and returns them as structured JSON.

Not always. The commercial invoice is usually the main document used by customs for classification, so it is where HS codes are most often required. Some countries, customs brokers and buyers still ask for HS codes on the packing list too, and including them makes it easier to check that both documents describe the same goods. Requirements vary by country and by trade lane, so check them with your forwarder or broker. When HS codes are present on the packing list, Mindee extracts them line by line, so you can compare them automatically with the commercial invoice.

Packing lists are hard to process automatically because every exporter uses its own table layout: some list each package separately, others group identical packages, and many run over several pages with merged cells or subtotals. Mindee doesn’t rely on templates. It reads the table structure and returns each package or item line with its marks, quantities, weights and dimensions, together with the document totals. You can then export the data to Excel, CSV or your WMS, and automatically check that the line weights and package counts add up to the totals before the shipment is processed.

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Freight forwarders use the total weight and volume to quote and book shipments, plan container loading and calculate chargeable weight for air freight. Warehouses use the package count and contents to receive goods quickly and spot missing or damaged packages. Importers rely on the packing list to locate specific items during customs inspections. With Mindee, this data is available as soon as the packing list is received, without retyping long tables, so each team can work from the same accurate information.

Yes, your data is highly secured and protected during the entire conversion process. As an enterprise-grade OCR solution, Mindee takes data privacy very seriously. Here are the key security measures in place:

• Certified compliance: Mindee's infrastructure is SOC 2 Type II certified and fully GDPR compliant, ensuring strict industry standards for data protection.
• Encryption: All documents and extracted data are fully encrypted both in transit (during the API call) and at rest.
• Data localization: You have control over where your data is processed, with the option to host and process your data on either EU or US servers.
• Strict privacy: Mindee respects data confidentiality. Your processed documents are not shared with third parties, and your private data is not used to train global AI models.

In short, your sensitive documents are processed in a secure, isolated environment and remain completely under your control.

We provide a 14 days free trial so you can fully test any of our OCR models — no credit card required. After this, we offer different pricing tiers depending of the volume of pages processed and the features you might need. See the pricing page for more information.

The supported document formats are:

• PDF (application/pdf) – While technically a document format rather than an image, it is natively supported for all extraction models.
• JPEG / JPG (image/jpeg)
• PNG (image/png) – Must be non-animated.
• WebP (image/webp)
• TIFF / TIF (image/tiff) – Both single-page and multi-page TIFFs are supported and processed similarly to PDFs.
• HEIC (image/heic) – Apple's High-Efficiency Image Container format.

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📌 Important technical limitations to keep in mind:

To ensure the OCR pipeline runs smoothly and successfully returns your JSON, make sure your files adhere to the following constraints:

• Maximum file size: 100 MB per file.
• Maximum page count: Up to 200 pages per document.
• File state: The files cannot be encrypted, and PDFs must not be password-protected.