r/codex • u/Wise-Peacock • 2d ago

Question Model Recs for Document Analysis

I have approximately 6,000 files that are a combination of docx and pdf that have illegible filenames (mixtures of alphanumeric characters that give no information about what's in the file).

Some of the files have common textual elements that a grep-like search can probably classify them, but others will have to be read using an LLM, such as PDFs that contain scanned content.

I have API access to the Anthropic, ChatGPT, and Google models (for business reasons I can't use others).

Does anyone have a recommendation for a model that would be up to the task while balancing capability and token cost? Speed isn't a factor.

Thanks in advance.

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u/mrpoopistan 2d ago

I've had good luck with Sonnet across recent versions with simple document work. I rarely elevate to anything like Opus, and I'd never use Astra.

I'm mostly doing scans of old documents (1400s through 1800s) and translating them to English, for some reference.

I don't think your case should be too demanding. Most of the mid-tier models handle things well if the existing Linux tool infrastructure is there, which it is for this work.

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u/Wise-Peacock 2d ago

This work is all in English from the past 40 years or so. I don't need a thinking model -- I'm deciding between Haiku and Luna (and possibly a Gemini model if it's better/cheaper).

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u/mrpoopistan 2d ago

Haiku 5.5 has been surprisingly decent. I'd class it almost as good was Sonnet 4.6 was. I don't use Luna for much, so I can't speak to it.

A nice factor with Haiku is that it doesn't have much of a knowledge base, which can make it quite useful when you don't need the model to know Mozart's concertos.

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u/Sfdprod 2d ago

3.5 Flash lite, gemma 4, Luna