PDF to Markdown
Turn a PDF into clean, editable Markdown — without uploading it.
Text-based PDFs work best. The file is read in your browser.
Complex tables and multi-column layouts may need a quick cleanup.
PDF.js runs locally. Disconnect from the network after loading this page and the converter still works.
What this tool does
PDFs are built for printing, not editing. This converter reads the text layer of a PDF and rebuilds it as Markdown, so headings stay headings, lists stay lists, and paragraphs stop breaking in the middle of a sentence.
The whole conversion happens in your browser with PDF.js. Your file is never uploaded, which matters when the document is a contract, a medical record, or something you should not be pasting into a random website. If a PDF is a scan with no text layer, the tool tells you instead of returning an empty page.
Private by architecture
The file stays in browser memory. Nothing is sent to our server.
Headings recovered
Font size and line structure are used to rebuild # and ## levels.
Clean paragraph flow
Line breaks inside a sentence are joined; real paragraph gaps are kept.
How to use
- 1
Choose a PDF
Drag and drop a text-based PDF, or click to browse. Files up to 25 MB work best.
- 2
Convert locally
We read each page, group lines, and rebuild the document as Markdown.
- 3
Take it anywhere
Copy the Markdown or download a .md file for Notion, Obsidian, GitHub, or an LLM.
Example
A PDF exported from Google Docs with a title, section headings, bullet lists, and page numbers in the footer.
# Product Spec ## Overview A short summary of what we are building and who it is for. - Problem - Approach - Success metric
FAQ
PDF to Markdown questions
Is my PDF uploaded?
No. PDF.js runs inside your browser and the file never leaves your device. You can disconnect from the network after the page loads and the converter will still work.
Does it work with scanned PDFs?
Not directly. A scan is an image, so there is no text layer to extract. Use the Image to Text OCR tool first, or run OCR in your PDF app and then convert the searchable copy.
Will the formatting be perfect?
For text-first documents, headings and lists usually survive well. Multi-column layouts, complex tables, footnotes, and text inside figures may need a quick cleanup. The tool is honest about being a text converter, not a layout clone.
Is there a file size or page limit?
The upload limit is 25 MB. There is no page limit beyond what your browser can hold in memory. Very large PDFs take a few seconds per hundred pages.
What can I do with the Markdown?
Paste it into Notion, Obsidian, GitHub, a docs site, or an AI prompt. Markdown is also easier to diff, search, and version than a PDF.