PDF to Markdown Converter

Convert PDF files to clean, well-structured Markdown. Tables become markdown tables. Images and graphics are described as text (no image files generated).

Quick Start

uv run skills/pdf-to-markdown/scripts/convert_to_markdown.py input.pdf

Output: ~/Desktop/{filename}.md

Options

Flag	Description
--no-llm	Skip LLM processing (faster, images become [Image] placeholders)
--force-ocr	Force OCR on all pages (for scanned PDFs)
--page-range "0,5-10"	Process specific pages only

Common Use Cases

Convert a PDF with default settings

uv run skills/pdf-to-markdown/scripts/convert_to_markdown.py ~/Documents/report.pdf

Specify output location

uv run skills/pdf-to-markdown/scripts/convert_to_markdown.py report.pdf ~/Documents/report.md

Fast conversion (no image descriptions)

uv run skills/pdf-to-markdown/scripts/convert_to_markdown.py --no-llm report.pdf

Scanned PDF (force OCR)

uv run skills/pdf-to-markdown/scripts/convert_to_markdown.py --force-ocr scanned_doc.pdf

Extract specific pages

uv run skills/pdf-to-markdown/scripts/convert_to_markdown.py --page-range "0-5" large_report.pdf

Output

• Pure Markdown text (no embedded images)
• Tables converted to Markdown table format
• Images/charts described as text using LLM
• Clean formatting suitable for AI processing

Requirements

• GEMINI_API_KEY: Required for LLM image descriptions (see SECRETS-SETUP.md)
• Use --no-llm flag if you don't have Gemini API access

First Run Note

The first run downloads ML models (~1-2GB) which are cached at ~/.cache/marker/. Subsequent runs are faster.

Technical Details

Uses Marker library:

• 31k+ GitHub stars
• Best-in-class PDF conversion accuracy
• Surya OCR for 90+ languages
• Gemini LLM integration for image understanding