PDF to Markdown

How to turn a PDF into Markdown

Markdown is plain text with a few marks in it: a # before a heading, a - before a list item. Notes apps, wikis, code sites and AI chats all understand it, and it is far easier to work with than text copied out of a PDF, which comes with broken lines and lost headings.

1. Drop the PDF on the box at the top.
2. Tick the box if you want a line (---) where each page ended.
3. Press Convert to Markdown.
4. Look through the result in the box, then press Copy it, or Save the .md file.

How the headings and lists are found

A PDF does not store headings or paragraphs. It stores words at points on a page, each in a font at a size. The tool reads it the way you would: text set clearly larger than the rest is a heading, lines close together are one paragraph, a line starting with a bullet or a number is a list item.

Lines broken in the middle of a paragraph are joined again, and a word split with a hyphen at the end of a line is put back together. Page numbers and the header or footer repeated on every page are left out.

What it cannot do

Tables come out as their words, a line each, because a PDF keeps no record of rows and columns, and a wrong guess would be worse. Pictures are left out. Pages in two columns may come out with the columns mixed.

A scan has no words in it at all, only a photograph of each page. The tool notices that and says so. Run the file through OCR PDF first, then convert the result here.