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After a parse, you can answer “where does the document say that?” without another API call. Three commands run on your machine and consume no credits:
  • ade find: Search everything the parse found.
  • ade crop: Save any element’s region of the page as an image.
  • ade view: Open the document in your browser with every element outlined.
Each command takes a job item ID, which comes from parse output or ade history list. If you don’t have a parse yet, start with the Quickstart.

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Find Elements

Use ade find to search a parse. Give it a job item ID and a search term:
Command
Output

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Read a Match

Each match is an element: one piece of the parsed document, such as a text block, a table, a single table cell, or a signature region. The API documentation calls elements blocks. A term can match at more than one level, so searching for “Jordan” matches both the table and the one cell inside it, and you can work with whichever fits your task. The search term matches as a case-insensitive substring, and matches always come back in document order. To adjust what comes back:
  • Use --regex to treat the term as a regular expression.
  • Use --type to keep only certain element types, --page to keep one page, and --limit to cap the count. Filters combine freely.
  • Omit the search term to list every element.
  • Add --id-only to print just the element IDs for piping.

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Crop Elements as Images

Use ade crop to save an element’s region of the original page as a PNG image. The image is evidence: proof you can point at, showing exactly where in the document a value came from. Crop one element by ID, or a whole selection at once using the same filters ade find takes (--type, --page, --all). Images render at 300 dpi by default and land in the job item’s crops folder.
Command
Output

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View the Document in Your Browser

Use ade view to see the parse laid over the original document. The command builds one HTML file: the document’s pages with every element outlined, next to the parsed markdown. Select an element on either side and the other side highlights to match. On a terminal, the file opens in your browser automatically. To return to the exact spot a value came from, pass --element-id. The output includes a deep_link URL that opens the viewer on this machine with that element already highlighted. To show someone else, send them the view.html file itself: it is self-contained, and the same #element= ending works on their copy. The viewer builds once and rebuilds only when the parse changes, which is why this example reports "built": false for an unchanged job item.
Command
Output

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Next Steps

Scripting and Automation

Pipe find results, batch crops, and run the CLI from agents and pipelines.

CLI Reference

Every flag these commands take, with their payload keys.