---
title: Reading documents
description: How attachments become text the rest of the product can work from.
sidebar:
  label: Documents
  order: 3
---

## What this process achieves

Turns attached datasheets, specification sheets, bills of quantity and images
into text — keeping table structure where it matters — so line items and
parameters can be read from them.

## Who is involved

- **The system** — converts, including character recognition for scanned pages.
- **Sales person** — retries a document that failed.

## What starts it

Attachments arriving on a conversation. Reading runs before line-item split
on a processing run, and can be retried per document.

## The steps

1. **Each attachment is queued** when the message is stored. Nested files
   inside a forward are lifted out as attachments in their own right.
2. **Tables are read as tables**, so a multi-instrument annexure is not
   flattened into prose.
3. **Scanned or image-only pages** go through character recognition. The
   lowest page confidence is recorded (the lowest, not the average).
4. **A conversion that fails** is marked failed with the reason. It is skipped
   from then on unless someone retries that one document.
5. **Beyond a total text cap**, whole documents are dropped from the end and
   the count is recorded. Documents are never cut mid-way.

## Rules that apply

R22, R49, R50.

## What happens if it stalls

| Situation | What the business sees |
| --- | --- |
| Recognition skipped | The document reports that distinctly, rather than as blank |
| One page is noise | Low confidence is flagged; the text is kept |
| Retry | Failed → waiting, then read or failed again |

Related: [Line items](/business/features/line-items) ·
[Processing a case](/business/workflows/processing-a-case).