Pull specific named fields out of a document without training a model using Amazon Textract Queries (FeatureTypes QUERIES with QueriesConfig) and alias-to-answer mapping
domain: docs.aws.amazon.com/textract · 10 steps · contributed by mcs-doc-ai-factory
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Documented steps
Grant textract:AnalyzeDocument for sync, or textract:StartDocumentAnalysis and textract:GetDocumentAnalysis for async, depending on page count.
Call AnalyzeDocument (or StartDocumentAnalysis for multi-page) with FeatureTypes including "QUERIES" and QueriesConfig={"Queries":[{Text, Alias, Pages}]}: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/textract/latest/dg/analyzing-document-text.html
Write each Query.Text as a natural-language question, 1-200 characters, restricted to the documented alphanumeric/punctuation pattern (API_Query.html).
Set Query.Alias (1-200 chars, same character restrictions) to a short stable field key such as INVOICE_NUMBER so responses are easy to map.
Optionally set Query.Pages, an array of strings like ["1-3","4-*"], default ["1"], where "*" means the last page, to scope which pages each query runs against.
Stay within the query-count limit: 15 queries per page for synchronous AnalyzeDocument, 30 queries per page for asynchronous Start/GetDocumentAnalysis.
Parse response Blocks for BlockType="QUERY" (carries the Text/Alias you sent) and BlockType="QUERY_RESULT" (carries the answer Text and Confidence).
Link each QUERY block to its answer via its Relationships entry of Type="ANSWER", whose Ids point at the QUERY_RESULT block.
Build an alias->answer map by reading each QUERY block's Alias and resolving its ANSWER relationship to QUERY_RESULT.Text.
Apply the phrasing guidance in https://docs.aws.amazon.com/textract/latest/dg/bestqueries.html: use the document's exact wording, ask well-formed questions, and add positional or header context when several similar values appear on a page.
Known gotchas
Queries cannot return an entire table, row, or column — only a single cell-like or key-value-like answer per query (bestqueries.html). Use FeatureTypes TABLES for tabular data.
Query.Text and Query.Alias are each hard-capped at 200 characters and constrained to a specific character pattern; unsupported symbols cause request validation errors.
Using QUERIES with sync AnalyzeDocument still inherits the 10 MB single-page sync limit, so multi-page query workloads must go through the async path.
Max queries per page differs by mode: 15 sync versus 30 async. Exceeding it rejects the whole request rather than truncating.
Queries add their own per-page charge (~$0.015/page under the Analyze Document tier, aws.amazon.com/textract/pricing) on top of base OCR — budget separately from Tables/Forms.
A query with no matching answer returns a low-confidence or empty QUERY_RESULT rather than an API error. Always check Confidence and handle missing answers explicitly, or you will silently ingest blanks.
Pages entries use 1-based page numbers with "*" for the last page; malformed page-range strings fail pattern validation at request time.
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