# Lines and Words of Text
<a name="how-it-works-lines-words"></a>

Detected text that's returned by Amazon Textract operations is returned in a list of [Block](API_Block.md) objects. These objects represent lines of text or textual words that are detected on a document page. The following text shows two lines of text that are made from multiple words.

This is text.

In two separate lines.

Detected text is returned in the `Text` field of a `Block` object. The `BlockType` field determines if the text is a line of text (LINE) or a word (WORD). A *WORD* is one or more ISO basic Latin script characters that aren't separated by spaces. A *LINE* is a string of tab-delimited and contiguous words.

 Additionally, Amazon Textract will determine if a piece of text was handwritten or printed using the `TextTypes` field. These return as HANDWRITING and PRINTED respectively. 

The other `Block` properties are common to all block types, such as the ID, confidence, and geometry information. For more information, see [Text Detection and Document Analysis Response Objects](how-it-works-document-layout.md). 

To detect only lines and words, you can use [DetectDocumentText](API_DetectDocumentText.md) or [StartDocumentTextDetection](API_StartDocumentTextDetection.md). For more information, see [Detecting Text](how-it-works-detecting.md). To get the detected text (lines and words) and information about how it relates to other parts of the document, such as tables, you can use [AnalyzeDocument](API_AnalyzeDocument.md) or [StartDocumentAnalysis](API_StartDocumentAnalysis.md). For more information, see [Analyzing Documents](how-it-works-analyzing.md).

`PAGE`, `LINE`, and `WORD` blocks are related to each other in a parent-to-child relationship. A `PAGE` block is the parent for all `LINE` block objects on a document page. Because a LINE can have one or more words, the `Relationships` array for a LINE block stores the IDs for child WORD blocks that make up the line of text. 

The following diagram shows how the line *Hello, world.* in the text *Hello, world. How are you?* is represented by `Block` objects. 

![\[Diagram showing text objects "PAGE", "LINE" with two instances, "WORD" with two instances, and "Hello, world." Labels and connections depict a hierarchical structure.\]](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/textract/latest/dg/images/hieroglyph-text-detection.png)




The following is the JSON output from `DetectDocumentText` when the sentence *Hello, world. How are you?* is detected. The first example is the JSON for the document page. You can use the CHILD IDs to navigate through the document.

```
{
    "Geometry": {...}, 
    "Relationships": [
        {
            "Type": "CHILD", 
            "Ids": [
                "d7fbd604-d609-4d69-857d-247a3f591238", // Line - Hello, world.
                "b6c19a93-6493-4d8e-958f-853c8f7ca055" //  Line - How are you?
            ]
        }
    ], 
    "BlockType": "PAGE", 
    "Id": "56ec1d77-171f-4881-9852-2b5b7e761608"
},
```

The following is the JSON for the LINE blocks that make up the line "Hello, World": 

```
{
    "Relationships": [
        {
            "Type": "CHILD", 
            "Ids": [
                "7f97e2ca-063e-47a8-981c-8beee31afc01", // Word - Hello,
                "4b990aa0-af96-4369-b90f-dbe02538ed21"  // Word - world.
            ]
        }
    ], 
    "Confidence": 99.63229370117188, 
    "Geometry": {...}, 
    "Text": "Hello, world.", 
    "BlockType": "LINE", 
    "Id": "d7fbd604-d609-4d69-857d-247a3f591238"
},
```

The following is the JSON for the WORD block for the word *Hello,*: 

```
{
    "Geometry": {...}, 
    "Text": "Hello,", 
    "TextType": "PRINTED",
    "BlockType": "WORD", 
    "Confidence": 99.74746704101562, 
    "Id": "7f97e2ca-063e-47a8-981c-8beee31afc01"
},
```

The final JSON is the WORD block for the word *world.*:

```
{
    "Geometry": {...}, 
    "Text": "world.",
    "TextType": "PRINTED",
    "BlockType": "WORD", 
    "Confidence": 99.5171127319336, 
    "Id": "4b990aa0-af96-4369-b90f-dbe02538ed21"
},
```