PDF to Markdown converter

Upload a PDF and get clean Markdown back in seconds. Headings, lists, tables and links survive the trip; running headers, footers and page numbers don't. Scanned PDFs are read with OCR.

  • Free, no sign-up
  • Tables kept
  • Multi-column layouts
  • OCR for scans
  • Files not saved

What the PDF converter keeps

  • Headings: detected from font size, numbering (1., 1.1) and the PDF's bookmarks, so the outline becomes #, ## and ###.
  • Tables: ruled grids and "booktabs" tables with only horizontal lines become Markdown tables.
  • Reading order: multi-column pages are read column by column, not straight across.
  • Lists and links: bullets, numbered steps and hyperlinks are kept as Markdown.
  • Clean text: page headers, footers and page numbers are removed, hyphenated words are joined and paragraphs continue across page breaks.
  • Scanned pages: pages without a text layer go through OCR in 11 languages.

Example output

A 3-page employee handbook PDF with numbered headings, a bullet list, a table and links. This is the converter's actual output, shortened:

# Employee Handbook

## 1. Introduction

Welcome to ACME. This handbook explains our policies and benefits.

### 1.1 Working Hours

Core hours are 10:00 to 16:00. Flexible arrangements are possible:

- Remote work up to three days per week
- Compressed four-day weeks in summer
- Part-time contracts on request

## 2. Benefits

| Level | Vacation days | Bonus |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Junior | 25 | 5% |
| Senior | 28 | 10% |
| Lead | 30 | 15% |

Steps to request leave:

1. Open the HR portal
2. Select the dates
3. Submit for approval

How to convert PDF to Markdown

  1. Drop your PDF into the box above, or paste a link to a PDF in the From URL tab.
  2. Wait a moment. Text PDFs take about a second; scanned pages take a few seconds each.
  3. Copy the Markdown, switch to Preview to check it, or download it as a .md file.

PDF to Markdown API

Converting PDFs in a pipeline? POST /v1/convert/raw returns the Markdown as the response body. Use /v1/convert with includeChunks=true to also get RAG chunks with page numbers.

curl -X POST "https://anytomarkdown-pdf-to-markdown-and-document-parser-api.p.rapidapi.com/v1/convert/raw?pages=1-20" \
  -H "X-RapidAPI-Key: YOUR_RAPIDAPI_KEY" \
  -H "X-RapidAPI-Host: anytomarkdown-pdf-to-markdown-and-document-parser-api.p.rapidapi.com" \
  -F "file=@report.pdf"

Get a free API key API overview

Why convert PDF to Markdown?

PDF is a page-layout format: it stores where each glyph goes, not which text is a heading, a list item or a table cell. Copy-pasting from a PDF loses that structure, breaks lines in the middle of sentences and mixes in page numbers.

Markdown keeps the structure in plain text. That makes it the best input for ChatGPT, Claude and other LLMs (the model sees what is a heading or a table, and Markdown uses fewer tokens than HTML), for RAG pipelines that split documents by section, and for tools like Obsidian, Notion, GitHub and static site generators.

Text PDFs vs scanned PDFs

Most PDFs exported from Word, Google Docs or a browser have a text layer, and convert exactly. Scanned PDFs and photos of documents only contain images; the converter detects pages without text and runs OCR on them automatically. The free tool runs OCR on up to 3 pages per file; the API plans go up to 500.

Frequently asked questions

Is this PDF to Markdown converter free?

Yes. The online converter is free without sign-up for files up to 5 MB and 20 pages. For bigger files or automation, the API has a free plan with 1,000 conversions a month.

Does it keep tables from the PDF?

Yes. Tables with ruled grids, and tables that only use horizontal lines (common in reports and papers), are converted to Markdown tables. Tables built from loose text without any lines may come out as text.

Can it convert scanned PDFs?

Yes. Pages without a text layer are recognized with OCR in English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Polish, Turkish, Russian and Ukrainian. The free tool runs OCR on up to 3 pages per file.

Are my PDFs stored?

No. Files are processed in memory and are not saved, shared or used for training. See the privacy page for details.

What about password-protected PDFs?

The API accepts a password parameter for encrypted PDFs. The online tool does not ask for passwords, so remove the protection first or use the API.

Can I convert only some pages?

With the API, yes: pages=1-5,8,10- selects pages. The online converter processes the first 20 pages.

Related converters

Word (DOCX) to Markdown

DOCX, DOC, RTF and ODT with styles, lists, tables and footnotes.

Open converter →

Image to Markdown (OCR)

Screenshots and scans to text with OCR.

Open converter →

Excel to Markdown table

Every sheet as a Markdown table, with Excel number formats.

Open converter →

URL to Markdown

Any web page as clean Markdown, without menus or ads.

Open converter →