PDF to Markdown Converter
This PDF to Markdown converter turns headings into #, bullet points into - and keeps links. Drop in a PDF, click “Convert to Markdown”, done – ideal for note apps, wikis and as clean input for AI chats. Everything runs in your browser, with no upload.
Source: Adobe – ISO 32000-1:2008 Document management – Portable document format (PDF 1.7). Updated: .
How it is calculated
Markdown is plain text with a few characters for structure: # Heading, - item, 1. step, blank lines between paragraphs. Any editor can read it, and Obsidian, Notion, GitHub, wikis and static site generators render it directly. AI assistants handle Markdown especially well too – a PDF as Markdown gives them the structure without page margins and header clutter.
How it works
- Drop in or choose a PDF and click “Convert to Markdown”.
- The tool reads the text with pdf.js and detects the structure: text clearly larger than the body becomes
#or##, lines starting with •, ◦ or – become bullet lists, “1.” and “2)” numbered lists. Words hyphenated at line ends are joined again. - Links from the PDF appear as a list below their page; optionally a
---line separates the pages. - Check the result, fix it right in the box if needed, copy it or save it as
.md(UTF-8).
Scanned PDFs
Pages without a text layer are read by the Tesseract text recognition running in your browser. Scans give you paragraphs but no headings, because OCR does not know the font size.
Honest limits
- Tables are not turned into Markdown tables; they come out line by line. Multi-column layouts may run together.
- Bold and italics are lost, because PDFs do not reliably mark font styles.
- Characters such as
*,_or[in the text are escaped with\so they do not format anything by accident.
Need plain text without Markdown characters? Use PDF to text; for an editable Word document, PDF to DOCX. With none of these tools does your PDF leave your device.
Frequently asked questions
How do I convert a PDF to Markdown?
Drop your PDF in here and click “Convert to Markdown”. Copy the result or save it as a .md file – free, no sign-up.
Why convert a PDF to Markdown for AI tools like ChatGPT or Claude?
Markdown keeps headings and lists but drops page breaks, headers and layout noise, so the model gets cleaner, shorter input. It also works well for Obsidian, wikis and GitHub docs.
Are tables converted?
Only as text, line by line. The tool does not build Markdown tables, because PDFs do not mark columns. Short tables are quick to rebuild by hand in the result box.
Does it work with scanned PDFs?
Yes, text recognition (OCR) reads scans in your browser. Headings are not detected there, only paragraphs.
Is my PDF sent to a server or an AI?
No. The conversion runs entirely in your browser with pdf.js and Tesseract; there is no upload and no AI in the background.
Sources and legal basis
- Adobe – ISO 32000-1:2008 Document management – Portable document format (PDF 1.7)
- pdf.js – getTextContent / getAnnotations (Mozilla, Apache-2.0)
- pdf.js 6.3.289 licence (Apache-2.0)
- Tesseract.js – OCR library for the browser (GitHub, Apache-2.0)
- Tesseract OCR documentation – Improving the quality of the output
- CommonMark Spec 0.31.2 – ATX headings, lists, backslash escapes, autolinks
- Open-source licenses of the libraries used (MIT, LGPL-3.0)
As of:
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