Developer struggles with PDF/document parsing for RAG in 2026
A developer running a RAG (a system that retrieves documents to help an AI answer questions) setup under contract with Canadian hospitals for non-clinical uses says their process is unreliable. Even after having review the process, the tools keep saying it's fine, but the developer knows parsing quality is poor, error-prone, and fails silently at times. They're considering subscribing to , a paid service that converts documents into AI-friendly formats, and asked the community what ingestion approaches others use.
Key points
- Developer runs a non-clinical RAG service under contract with Canadian hospitals
- (including Fable) reviewed the process but found nothing wrong
- is described as inconsistent and prone to s
- Considering a paid as an alternative
- Asked the community how others handle PDF/PPT/docx ingestion