PDF to Markdown Converter

What this converter can and cannot do

A PDF is a drawing of a page: each run of text sits at a coordinate in a given font size, with no record of which line is a heading or which words form a table cell. This tool reads that text layer with Mozilla PDF.js, groups it into lines and paragraphs by position, marks text noticeably larger than the body as a heading, and turns bullet and number markers into Markdown lists.

• Works well: reports, essays, contracts, and other single-column documents made in Word, Google Docs, or LaTeX.
• Needs cleanup: tables, which arrive as lines of text with gaps between cells (rebuild them in the table generator), two-column layouts, footnotes, and running headers or page numbers.
• Does not work: scanned PDFs. There is no text to read without OCR, and the tool warns you when a file looks like a scan.

Other ways to convert PDF to Markdown

For tables, scans, or a batch of files, a local tool with layout models does better than any text-layer extractor, this one included. These are the common open-source options. Pandoc is not one of them: it can write PDFs but cannot read them.

pip install 'markitdown[pdf]'
markitdown report.pdf -o report.md

pip install docling
docling report.pdf

pip install marker-pdf
marker_single report.pdf

import pymupdf4llm
md = pymupdf4llm.to_markdown("report.pdf")

After you have a draft, the headings guide and tables guide cover the syntax most conversions get wrong. Going the other way? The Markdown to PDF converter turns Markdown back into a PDF.

Frequently asked questions

How do I convert a PDF to Markdown?

Drop the PDF onto the converter above or choose the file. The tool reads the PDF's text layer in your browser and writes a Markdown draft, with large text turned into headings and bullets into list items. Copy it, or download it as a .md file.

Does this PDF to Markdown converter upload my file?

No. Parsing happens in your browser with Mozilla PDF.js, which is fetched from a public CDN the first time you convert. The PDF itself is never sent to a server or stored.

Why is the Markdown messy after I convert a PDF?

A PDF stores positioned text, not headings, lists, or tables, so the converter guesses structure from font size and position. Tables come out as lines of text with gaps between the cells, and two-column pages can interleave. Rebuild tables with the Markdown table generator, or use a layout-aware tool such as Docling or Marker.

Can I convert a scanned PDF to Markdown?

Not with this tool. A scan is a picture of a page with no text layer, so extraction comes back nearly empty, and the converter tells you so. Run OCR first, or use Docling or Marker, which OCR scanned pages themselves.

How do I convert a PDF to Markdown in Python?

pip install pymupdf4llm, then md = pymupdf4llm.to_markdown("report.pdf") returns the Markdown as a string. For a command-line tool, pip install 'markitdown[pdf]' and run markitdown report.pdf -o report.md. Docling and Marker are heavier but recover tables and OCR scans.

Can Pandoc convert PDF to Markdown?

No. PDF is one of Pandoc's output formats but not an input format, so pandoc report.pdf -o report.md does not work. Use one of the PDF-specific tools on this page instead.

Is there a file size or page limit?

Yes. Files must be 20 MB or smaller, and only the first 50 pages are converted so a large document cannot freeze the tab.

Can I convert a password-protected PDF?

Yes, if you know the password. The tool asks for it and unlocks the file in your browser; neither the password nor the PDF is sent anywhere.