MinerU Output Files Documentation

Overview

After executing the mineru command, in addition to the main markdown file output, multiple auxiliary files are generated for debugging, quality inspection, and further processing. These files include:

Visual debugging files: Help users intuitively understand the document parsing process and results
Structured data files: Contain detailed parsing data for secondary development

The following sections provide detailed descriptions of each file's purpose and format.

Visual Debugging Files

Layout Analysis File (layout.pdf)

File naming format: {original_filename}_layout.pdf

Functionality:

Visualizes layout analysis results for each page
Numbers in the top-right corner of each detection box indicate reading order
Different background colors distinguish different types of content blocks

Use cases:

Check if layout analysis is correct
Verify if reading order is reasonable
Debug layout-related issues

layout page example

Text Spans File (spans.pdf)

Note

Only applicable to pipeline backend

File naming format: {original_filename}_spans.pdf

Functionality:

Uses different colored line boxes to annotate page content based on span type
Used for quality inspection and issue troubleshooting

Use cases:

Quickly troubleshoot text loss issues
Check inline formula recognition
Verify text segmentation accuracy

span page example

Structured Data Files

Important

The VLM backend output has significant changes in version 2.5 and is not backward-compatible with the pipeline backend. If you plan to build secondary development on structured outputs, please read this document carefully.

Pipeline Backend Output Results

Model Inference Results (model.json)

File naming format: {original_filename}_model.json

Data Structure Definition

from pydantic import BaseModel, Field
from enum import IntEnum

class CategoryType(IntEnum):
    """Content category enumeration"""
    title = 0               # Title
    plain_text = 1          # Text
    abandon = 2             # Including headers, footers, page numbers, and page annotations
    figure = 3              # Image
    figure_caption = 4      # Image caption
    table = 5               # Table
    table_caption = 6       # Table caption
    table_footnote = 7      # Table footnote
    isolate_formula = 8     # Interline formula
    formula_caption = 9     # Interline formula number
    embedding = 13          # Inline formula
    isolated = 14           # Interline formula
    text = 15               # OCR recognition result

class PageInfo(BaseModel):
    """Page information"""
    page_no: int = Field(description="Page number, first page is 0", ge=0)
    height: int = Field(description="Page height", gt=0)
    width: int = Field(description="Page width", ge=0)

class ObjectInferenceResult(BaseModel):
    """Object recognition result"""
    category_id: CategoryType = Field(description="Category", ge=0)
    poly: list[float] = Field(description="Quadrilateral coordinates, format: [x0,y0,x1,y1,x2,y2,x3,y3]")
    score: float = Field(description="Confidence score of inference result")
    latex: str | None = Field(description="LaTeX parsing result", default=None)
    html: str | None = Field(description="HTML parsing result", default=None)

class PageInferenceResults(BaseModel):
    """Page inference results"""
    layout_dets: list[ObjectInferenceResult] = Field(description="Page recognition results")
    page_info: PageInfo = Field(description="Page metadata")

# Complete inference results
inference_result: list[PageInferenceResults] = []

Coordinate System Description

poly coordinate format: [x0, y0, x1, y1, x2, y2, x3, y3]

Represents coordinates of top-left, top-right, bottom-right, bottom-left points respectively
Coordinate origin is at the top-left corner of the page

poly coordinate diagram

Sample Data

[
    {
        "layout_dets": [
            {
                "category_id": 2,
                "poly": [
                    99.1906967163086,
                    100.3119125366211,
                    730.3707885742188,
                    100.3119125366211,
                    730.3707885742188,
                    245.81326293945312,
                    99.1906967163086,
                    245.81326293945312
                ],
                "score": 0.9999997615814209
            }
        ],
        "page_info": {
            "page_no": 0,
            "height": 2339,
            "width": 1654
        }
    },
    {
        "layout_dets": [
            {
                "category_id": 5,
                "poly": [
                    99.13092803955078,
                    2210.680419921875,
                    497.3183898925781,
                    2210.680419921875,
                    497.3183898925781,
                    2264.78076171875,
                    99.13092803955078,
                    2264.78076171875
                ],
                "score": 0.9999997019767761
            }
        ],
        "page_info": {
            "page_no": 1,
            "height": 2339,
            "width": 1654
        }
    }
]

Intermediate Processing Results (middle.json)

File naming format: {original_filename}_middle.json

Top-level Structure

Field Name	Type	Description
`pdf_info`	`list[dict]`	Array of parsing results for each page
`_backend`	`string`	Parsing mode: `pipeline` or `vlm`
`_version_name`	`string`	MinerU version number

Page Information Structure (pdf_info)

Field Name	Description
`preproc_blocks`	Unsegmented intermediate results after PDF preprocessing
`page_idx`	Page number, starting from 0
`page_size`	Page width and height `[width, height]`
`images`	Image block information list
`tables`	Table block information list
`interline_equations`	Interline formula block information list
`discarded_blocks`	Block information to be discarded
`para_blocks`	Content block results after segmentation

Block Structure Hierarchy

Level 1 blocks (table | image)
└── Level 2 blocks
    └── Lines
        └── Spans

Level 1 Block Fields

Field Name	Description
`type`	Block type: `table` or `image`
`bbox`	Rectangular box coordinates of the block `[x0, y0, x1, y1]`
`blocks`	List of contained level 2 blocks

Level 2 Block Fields

Field Name	Description
`type`	Block type (see table below)
`bbox`	Rectangular box coordinates of the block
`lines`	List of contained line information

Level 2 Block Types

Type	Description
`image_body`	Image body
`image_caption`	Image caption text
`image_footnote`	Image footnote
`table_body`	Table body
`table_caption`	Table caption text
`table_footnote`	Table footnote
`text`	Text block
`title`	Title block
`index`	Index block
`list`	List block
`interline_equation`	Interline formula block

Line and Span Structure

Line fields: - bbox: Rectangular box coordinates of the line - spans: List of contained spans

Span fields: - bbox: Rectangular box coordinates of the span - type: Span type (image, table, text, inline_equation, interline_equation) - content | img_path: Text content or image path

Sample Data

{
    "pdf_info": [
        {
            "preproc_blocks": [
                {
                    "type": "text",
                    "bbox": [
                        52,
                        61.956024169921875,
                        294,
                        82.99800872802734
                    ],
                    "lines": [
                        {
                            "bbox": [
                                52,
                                61.956024169921875,
                                294,
                                72.0000228881836
                            ],
                            "spans": [
                                {
                                    "bbox": [
                                        54.0,
                                        61.956024169921875,
                                        296.2261657714844,
                                        72.0000228881836
                                    ],
                                    "content": "dependent on the service headway and the reliability of the departure ",
                                    "type": "text",
                                    "score": 1.0
                                }
                            ]
                        }
                    ]
                }
            ],
            "layout_bboxes": [
                {
                    "layout_bbox": [
                        52,
                        61,
                        294,
                        731
                    ],
                    "layout_label": "V",
                    "sub_layout": []
                }
            ],
            "page_idx": 0,
            "page_size": [
                612.0,
                792.0
            ],
            "_layout_tree": [],
            "images": [],
            "tables": [],
            "interline_equations": [],
            "discarded_blocks": [],
            "para_blocks": [
                {
                    "type": "text",
                    "bbox": [
                        52,
                        61.956024169921875,
                        294,
                        82.99800872802734
                    ],
                    "lines": [
                        {
                            "bbox": [
                                52,
                                61.956024169921875,
                                294,
                                72.0000228881836
                            ],
                            "spans": [
                                {
                                    "bbox": [
                                        54.0,
                                        61.956024169921875,
                                        296.2261657714844,
                                        72.0000228881836
                                    ],
                                    "content": "dependent on the service headway and the reliability of the departure ",
                                    "type": "text",
                                    "score": 1.0
                                }
                            ]
                        }
                    ]
                }
            ]
        }
    ],
    "_backend": "pipeline",
    "_version_name": "0.6.1"
}

Content List (content_list.json)

File naming format: {original_filename}_content_list.json

Functionality

This is a simplified version of middle.json that stores all readable content blocks in reading order as a flat structure, removing complex layout information for easier subsequent processing.

Content Types

Type	Description
`image`	Image
`table`	Table
`text`	Text/Title
`equation`	Interline formula

Text Level Identification

Text levels are distinguished through the text_level field:

No text_level or text_level: 0: Body text
text_level: 1: Level 1 heading
text_level: 2: Level 2 heading
And so on...

Common Fields

All content blocks include a page_idx field indicating the page number (starting from 0).
All content blocks include a bbox field representing the bounding box coordinates of the content block [x0, y0, x1, y1], mapped to a range of 0-1000.

Sample Data

[
        {
        "type": "text",
        "text": "The response of flow duration curves to afforestation ",
        "text_level": 1, 
        "bbox": [
            62,
            480,
            946,
            904
        ],
        "page_idx": 0
    },
    {
        "type": "image",
        "img_path": "images/a8ecda1c69b27e4f79fce1589175a9d721cbdc1cf78b4cc06a015f3746f6b9d8.jpg",
        "img_caption": [
            "Fig. 1. Annual flow duration curves of daily flows from Pine Creek, Australia, 1989–2000. "
        ],
        "img_footnote": [],
        "bbox": [
            62,
            480,
            946,
            904
        ],
        "page_idx": 1
    },
    {
        "type": "equation",
        "img_path": "images/181ea56ef185060d04bf4e274685f3e072e922e7b839f093d482c29bf89b71e8.jpg",
        "text": "$$\nQ _ { \\% } = f ( P ) + g ( T )\n$$",
        "text_format": "latex",
        "bbox": [
            62,
            480,
            946,
            904
        ],
        "page_idx": 2
    },
    {
        "type": "table",
        "img_path": "images/e3cb413394a475e555807ffdad913435940ec637873d673ee1b039e3bc3496d0.jpg",
        "table_caption": [
            "Table 2 Significance of the rainfall and time terms "
        ],
        "table_footnote": [
            "indicates that the rainfall term was significant at the $5 \\%$ level, $T$ indicates that the time term was significant at the $5 \\%$ level, \\* represents significance at the $10 \\%$ level, and na denotes too few data points for meaningful analysis. "
        ],
        "table_body": "<html><body><table><tr><td rowspan=\"2\">Site</td><td colspan=\"10\">Percentile</td></tr><tr><td>10</td><td>20</td><td>30</td><td>40</td><td>50</td><td>60</td><td>70</td><td>80</td><td>90</td><td>100</td></tr><tr><td>Traralgon Ck</td><td>P</td><td>P,*</td><td>P</td><td>P</td><td>P,</td><td>P,</td><td>P,</td><td>P,</td><td>P</td><td>P</td></tr><tr><td>Redhill</td><td>P,T</td><td>P,T</td><td>，*</td><td>**</td><td>P.T</td><td>P,*</td><td>P*</td><td>P*</td><td>*</td><td>，*</td></tr><tr><td>Pine Ck</td><td></td><td>P,T</td><td>P,T</td><td>P,T</td><td>P,T</td><td>T</td><td>T</td><td>T</td><td>na</td><td>na</td></tr><tr><td>Stewarts Ck 5</td><td>P,T</td><td>P,T</td><td>P,T</td><td>P,T</td><td>P.T</td><td>P.T</td><td>P,T</td><td>na</td><td>na</td><td>na</td></tr><tr><td>Glendhu 2</td><td>P</td><td>P,T</td><td>P,*</td><td>P,T</td><td>P.T</td><td>P,ns</td><td>P,T</td><td>P,T</td><td>P,T</td><td>P,T</td></tr><tr><td>Cathedral Peak 2</td><td>P,T</td><td>P,T</td><td>P,T</td><td>P,T</td><td>P,T</td><td>*,T</td><td>P,T</td><td>P,T</td><td>P,T</td><td>T</td></tr><tr><td>Cathedral Peak 3</td><td>P.T</td><td>P.T</td><td>P,T</td><td>P,T</td><td>P,T</td><td>T</td><td>P,T</td><td>P,T</td><td>P,T</td><td>T</td></tr><tr><td>Lambrechtsbos A</td><td>P,T</td><td>P</td><td>P</td><td>P,T</td><td>*,T</td><td>*,T</td><td>*,T</td><td>*,T</td><td>*,T</td><td>T</td></tr><tr><td>Lambrechtsbos B</td><td>P,T</td><td>P,T</td><td>P,T</td><td>P,T</td><td>P,T</td><td>P,T</td><td>P,T</td><td>P,T</td><td>T</td><td>T</td></tr><tr><td>Biesievlei</td><td>P,T</td><td>P.T</td><td>P,T</td><td>P,T</td><td>*,T</td><td>*,T</td><td>T</td><td>T</td><td>P,T</td><td>P,T</td></tr></table></body></html>",
        "bbox": [
            62,
            480,
            946,
            904
        ],  
        "page_idx": 5
    }
]

VLM Backend Output Results

Model Inference Results (model.json)

File naming format: {original_filename}_model.json

File format description

Two-level nested list: outer list = pages; inner list = content blocks of that page
Each block is a dict with at least: type, bbox, angle, content (some types add extra fields like score, block_tags, content_tags, format)
Designed for direct, raw model inspection

Supported content types (type field values)

{
  "text": "Plain text",
  "title": "Title",
  "equation": "Display (interline) formula",
  "image": "Image",
  "image_caption": "Image caption",
  "image_footnote": "Image footnote",
  "table": "Table",
  "table_caption": "Table caption",
  "table_footnote": "Table footnote",
  "phonetic": "Phonetic annotation",
  "code": "Code block",
  "code_caption": "Code caption",
  "ref_text": "Reference / citation entry",
  "algorithm": "Algorithm block (treated as code subtype)",
  "list": "List container",
  "header": "Page header",
  "footer": "Page footer",
  "page_number": "Page number",
  "aside_text": "Side / margin note",
  "page_footnote": "Page footnote"
}

Coordinate system

bbox = [x0, y0, x1, y1] (top-left, bottom-right)
Origin at top-left of the page
All coordinates are normalized percentages in [0,1]

Sample data

[
  [
    {
      "type": "header",
      "bbox": [0.077, 0.095, 0.18, 0.181],
      "angle": 0,
      "score": null,
      "block_tags": null,
      "content": "ELSEVIER",
      "format": null,
      "content_tags": null
    },
    {
      "type": "title",
      "bbox": [0.157, 0.228, 0.833, 0.253],
      "angle": 0,
      "score": null,
      "block_tags": null,
      "content": "The response of flow duration curves to afforestation",
      "format": null,
      "content_tags": null
    }
  ]
]

Intermediate Processing Results (middle.json)

File naming format: {original_filename}_middle.json

Structure is broadly similar to the pipeline backend, but with these differences:

list becomes a second‑level block, a new field sub_type distinguishes list categories:
- text: ordinary list
- ref_text: reference / bibliography style list
New code block type with sub_type(a code block always has at least a code_body, it may optionally have a code_caption):
- code
- algorithm
discarded_blocks may contain additional types:
- header
- footer
- page_number
- aside_text
- page_footnote
All blocks include an angle field indicating rotation (one of 0, 90, 180, 270).

Examples

Example: list block

{
  "bbox": [174,155,818,333],
  "type": "list",
  "angle": 0,
  "index": 11,
  "blocks": [
    {
      "bbox": [174,157,311,175],
      "type": "text",
      "angle": 0,
      "lines": [
        {
          "bbox": [174,157,311,175],
            "spans": [
              {
                "bbox": [174,157,311,175],
                "type": "text",
                "content": "H.1 Introduction"
              }
            ]
        }
      ],
      "index": 3
    },
    {
      "bbox": [175,182,464,229],
      "type": "text",
      "angle": 0,
      "lines": [
        {
          "bbox": [175,182,464,229],
          "spans": [
            {
              "bbox": [175,182,464,229],
              "type": "text",
              "content": "H.2 Example: Divide by Zero without Exception Handling"
            }
          ]
        }
      ],
      "index": 4
    }
  ],
  "sub_type": "text"
}

Example: code block with optional caption:

{
  "type": "code",
  "bbox": [114,780,885,1231],
  "blocks": [
    {
      "bbox": [114,780,885,1231],
      "lines": [
        {
          "bbox": [114,780,885,1231],
          "spans": [
            {
              "bbox": [114,780,885,1231],
              "type": "text",
              "content": "1 // Fig. H.1: DivideByZeroNoExceptionHandling.java  \n2 // Integer division without exception handling.  \n3 import java.util.Scanner;  \n4  \n5 public class DivideByZeroNoExceptionHandling  \n6 {  \n7 // demonstrates throwing an exception when a divide-by-zero occurs  \n8 public static int quotient( int numerator, int denominator )  \n9 {  \n10 return numerator / denominator; // possible division by zero  \n11 } // end method quotient  \n12  \n13 public static void main(String[] args)  \n14 {  \n15 Scanner scanner = new Scanner(System.in); // scanner for input  \n16  \n17 System.out.print(\"Please enter an integer numerator: \");  \n18 int numerator = scanner.nextInt();  \n19 System.out.print(\"Please enter an integer denominator: \");  \n20 int denominator = scanner.nextInt();  \n21"
            }
          ]
        }
      ],
      "index": 17,
      "angle": 0,
      "type": "code_body"
    },
    {
      "bbox": [867,160,1280,189],
      "lines": [
        {
          "bbox": [867,160,1280,189],
          "spans": [
            {
              "bbox": [867,160,1280,189],
              "type": "text",
              "content": "Algorithm 1 Modules for MCTSteg"
            }
          ]
        }
      ],
      "index": 19,
      "angle": 0,
      "type": "code_caption"
    }
  ],
  "index": 17,
  "sub_type": "code"
}

Content List (content_list.json)

File naming format: {original_filename}_content_list.json

Based on the pipeline format, with these VLM-specific extensions:

New code type with sub_type (code | algorithm):
- Fields: code_body (string), optional code_caption (list of strings)
New list type with sub_type (text | ref_text):
- Field: list_items (array of strings)
All discarded_blocks entries are also output (e.g., headers, footers, page numbers, margin notes, page footnotes).
Existing types (image, table, text, equation) remain unchanged.
bbox still uses the 0–1000 normalized coordinate mapping.

Examples

Example: code (algorithm) entry

{
  "type": "code",
  "sub_type": "algorithm",
  "code_caption": ["Algorithm 1 Modules for MCTSteg"],
  "code_body": "1: function GETCOORDINATE(d)  \n2:  $x \\gets d / l$ ,  $y \\gets d$  mod  $l$   \n3: return  $(x, y)$   \n4: end function  \n5: function BESTCHILD(v)  \n6:  $C \\gets$  child set of  $v$   \n7:  $v' \\gets \\arg \\max_{c \\in C} \\mathrm{UCTScore}(c)$   \n8:  $v'.n \\gets v'.n + 1$   \n9: return  $v'$   \n10: end function  \n11: function BACK PROPAGATE(v)  \n12: Calculate  $R$  using Equation 11  \n13: while  $v$  is not a root node do  \n14:  $v.r \\gets v.r + R$ ,  $v \\gets v.p$   \n15: end while  \n16: end function  \n17: function RANDOMSEARCH(v)  \n18: while  $v$  is not a leaf node do  \n19: Randomly select an untried action  $a \\in A(v)$   \n20: Create a new node  $v'$   \n21:  $(x, y) \\gets \\mathrm{GETCOORDINATE}(v'.d)$   \n22:  $v'.p \\gets v$ ,  $v'.d \\gets v.d + 1$ ,  $v'.\\Gamma \\gets v.\\Gamma$   \n23:  $v'.\\gamma_{x,y} \\gets a$   \n24: if  $a = -1$  then  \n25:  $v.lc \\gets v'$   \n26: else if  $a = 0$  then  \n27:  $v.mc \\gets v'$   \n28: else  \n29:  $v.rc \\gets v'$   \n30: end if  \n31:  $v \\gets v'$   \n32: end while  \n33: return  $v$   \n34: end function  \n35: function SEARCH(v)  \n36: while  $v$  is fully expanded do  \n37:  $v \\gets$  BESTCHILD(v)  \n38: end while  \n39: if  $v$  is not a leaf node then  \n40:  $v \\gets$  RANDOMSEARCH(v)  \n41: end if  \n42: return  $v$   \n43: end function",
  "bbox": [510,87,881,740],
  "page_idx": 0
}

Example: list (text) entry

{
  "type": "list",
  "sub_type": "text",
  "list_items": [
    "H.1 Introduction",
    "H.2 Example: Divide by Zero without Exception Handling",
    "H.3 Example: Divide by Zero with Exception Handling",
    "H.4 Summary"
  ],
  "bbox": [174,155,818,333],
  "page_idx": 0
}

Example: discarded blocks output

[
  {
    "type": "header",
    "text": "Journal of Hydrology 310 (2005) 253-265",
    "bbox": [363,164,623,177],
    "page_idx": 0
  },
  {
    "type": "page_footnote",
    "text": "* Corresponding author. Address: Forest Science Centre, Department of Sustainability and Environment, P.O. Box 137, Heidelberg, Vic. 3084, Australia. Tel.: +61 3 9450 8719; fax: +61 3 9450 8644.",
    "bbox": [71,815,915,841],
    "page_idx": 0
  }
]

Summary

The above files constitute MinerU's complete output results. Users can choose appropriate files for subsequent processing based on their needs:

Model outputs (Use raw outputs):
- model.json
Debugging and verification (Use visualization files):
- layout.pdf
- spans.pdf
Content extraction: (Use simplified files):
- *.md
- content_list.json
Secondary development: (Use structured files):
- middle.json