name: markitdown
description: "Convert local documents to Markdown using Microsoft's markitdown CLI. Best for: PDF, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, images (OCR), audio. Can fetch URLs but Jina is faster for web. Triggers on: convert to markdown, read PDF, parse document, extract text from, docx, xlsx, pptx, OCR image, local file."
license: MIT
compatibility: "Requires markitdown. Install: pip install markitdown"
allowed-tools: "Bash"
metadata:
author: claude-mods
markitdown - Document to Markdown
Convert local documents to clean Markdown. One tool for PDF, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, images, and more.
When to Use markitdown
| Use Case |
Recommendation |
| Local files (PDF, Word, Excel) |
✅ Use markitdown - unique capability |
| Web pages |
❌ Use Jina (r.jina.ai/) - 5x faster |
| Blocked/anti-bot sites |
❌ Use Firecrawl |
| OCR on images |
✅ Use markitdown |
| Audio transcription |
✅ Use markitdown |
Basic Usage
# Local files (primary use case)
markitdown document.pdf
markitdown report.docx
markitdown data.xlsx
markitdown slides.pptx
markitdown screenshot.png # OCR
# URLs (works, but Jina is faster)
markitdown https://example.com
# Save output
markitdown document.pdf > document.md
Supported Formats
| Format |
Extensions |
Notes |
| PDF |
.pdf |
Text extraction, tables |
| Word |
.docx |
Formatting preserved |
| Excel |
.xlsx |
Tables to markdown |
| PowerPoint |
.pptx |
Slides as sections |
| Images |
.jpg, .png |
OCR text extraction |
| HTML |
.html |
Clean conversion |
| Audio |
.mp3, .wav |
Speech-to-text |
| Text |
.txt, .csv, .json, .xml |
Pass-through/structure |
| URLs |
https://... |
Works but slower than Jina |
Benchmarked Performance (URLs)
| Tool |
Avg Speed |
Success Rate |
| Jina |
0.5s |
10/10 |
| markitdown |
2.5s |
9/10 |
| Firecrawl |
4.5s |
10/10 |
Verdict: For URLs, use Jina. For local files, markitdown is the only option.
Examples
# PDF to markdown (primary use case)
markitdown report.pdf > report.md
# Excel spreadsheet
markitdown financials.xlsx
# Image with text (OCR)
markitdown screenshot.png
# PowerPoint deck
markitdown presentation.pptx > slides.md
# Audio transcription
markitdown meeting.mp3 > transcript.md
Comparison with Alternatives
| Task |
markitdown |
Alternative |
| PDF text |
markitdown file.pdf |
PyMuPDF, pdfplumber |
| Word docs |
markitdown file.docx |
python-docx |
| Excel |
markitdown file.xlsx |
pandas, openpyxl |
| OCR |
markitdown image.png |
Tesseract |
| Web pages |
Use Jina instead |
r.jina.ai/URL (5x faster) |
markitdown's advantage: One CLI for all local document formats. No code needed.
By