> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.contextual.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Parse

> Contextual AI Component Quickstart

## Overview

Parse is Contextual AI's structured data extraction model. It excels at converting unstructured text (PDF, DOCX) into markdown format by identifying and extracting key information.

## Key Features

* Extracts unstructured data into markdown text
* Hierarchical representation of sections including title, headers, etc.
* Table extraction
* Multiple output formats (markdown-per-page, markdown-document, and blocks-per-page)

## Getting Started

See the [Parse How-to guide](/how-to-guides/parse) for a detailed walkthrough on how to use the Parse API to extract structured data from documents.

## Additional Resources

* [Contextual AI Parser Blog Post](https://contextual.ai/blog/document-parser-for-rag)
* [Notebook and Example](https://github.com/ContextualAI/examples/blob/main/03-standalone-api/04-parse/parse.ipynb)