How to convert a PDF to Markdown
Quick answer
Upload your PDF, click Extract text, and switch to the Markdown view. Headings come from font size, list items are recognised from bullets or numbers, and tables with clean columns become real Markdown tables - then download as .md.
- 1Upload your PDF.
- 2Click Extract text.
- 3Switch to the Markdown view.
- 4Download as .md.
Free, no sign-up, and your file is read on your own device rather than uploaded.
Markdown is what most documentation - a README, a wiki page, a static site, a lot of note-taking tools - actually reads as formatting rather than literal text, so a PDF that needs to go into one of those needs to become Markdown, not just plain text.
This reconstructs headings, bullet and numbered lists, and tables directly from the PDF - the same font-size and table-detection heuristics PDF to Word already uses, just written out as Markdown syntax instead of a Word document.
Step by step
Switch to the Markdown view
Headings, lists and detected tables appear as real Markdown syntax.
PDF to Text
Tips
- Headings are inferred from font size relative to the rest of the page - a document with a clear, consistent heading hierarchy converts more accurately than one where headings and body text are similar sizes.
- A table needs genuinely aligned columns to become a Markdown pipe table; text that only looks aligned by eye will come through as plain lines instead.
- Markdown has no way to represent a multi-column page layout, exact positioning, or images pulled from the PDF - only the text structure survives.
Common problems
A heading was not detected as a heading.
Heading detection relies on font size standing out from the body text - if a heading is only slightly larger, or styled with bold rather than size, it may come through as a plain paragraph instead.
A table came through as plain lines instead of a Markdown table.
The original table probably lacks true column alignment - text nudged into place with spacing rather than genuine columns does not convert into a reliable table.
The PDF is a scan and produced no Markdown at all.
A scan has no real text to structure into Markdown. Run the OCR workspace on it first, then bring the extracted text back here.
Frequently asked questions
- Does it keep headings and lists as real Markdown?
- Yes - heading levels come from font size relative to the page, and lines starting with a bullet or number are converted into Markdown list syntax.
- Are tables converted to Markdown tables?
- Where the table has genuine column alignment, yes - a Markdown pipe table. Where it does not, the rows come through as plain text instead.
- Does it work on a scanned PDF?
- Not directly - a scan has no text to structure. Run the OCR workspace on it first, then convert the extracted text here.
- Can I get plain text instead of Markdown from the same file?
- Yes - the same tool offers a plain text view alongside Markdown, from the same extraction.
- Is my PDF uploaded anywhere?
- No. Conversion happens entirely in your browser.
Related PDF tools
- PDF to TextPull the words out of a PDF as plain text or structured Markdown.
- OCR Text ExtractorUpload an image or a scanned PDF and get real, selectable text back - processed on your own device.
- PDF to WordTurn a PDF into an editable Word document, with tables and images.
Related articles
- Convert
How to convert a PDF to plain text
Upload your PDF, click Extract text, and copy the plain text directly or download it as a .txt file. Real, selectable text converts directly; a scanned PDF has none to extract and needs OCR first.
- Convert
Can't copy text from a PDF? Here's why, and how to fix it
Usually one of two things: the PDF is a scan with no real text at all (needs OCR), or it has real text but your PDF viewer's selection is behaving oddly (upload it here instead and extract the text directly). Check the PDF Inspector if you are not sure which.
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