TextConverter preprocesses files and returns Documents.

A typical scenario where you'd want to use a TextConverter is in an indexing pipeline to convert your files to plain text document objects. It's worth noting that if you add a Converter to your indexing pipeline, the conversion only happens once when you deploy the pipeline. Your files are not converted every time you run a search.
After the files are converted, they're stored in the DocumentStore.

Basic Information

• Pipeline type: Used in indexing pipelines.
• Position in a pipeline: Either at the very begining or after a FileTypeClassifier.
• Nodes that can precede it in a pipeline**: Used as the first node, takes [File] as input, or after FileTypeClassifier
• Nodes that can follow it in a pipeline: PreProcessor
• Node input: File
• Node output: Documents
• Available node classes: TextConverter

Usage Examples

You can use it in your indexing pipeline as the first node.

...
components:
  - name: TextFileConverter
    type: TextConverter
...
pipelines:
  - name: indexing
    nodes:
      - name: TextFileConverter
        inputs: [File]
      - name: Preprocessor
        inputs: [TextFileConverter]