Markdown Converter

Markdown Converter

Convert files to Markdown using uvx markitdown — no manual install required.

Choosing the invocation (read this first)

markitdown ships format support as optional extras. A bare markitdown install only handles HTML, plain text, CSV, JSON, and XML. PDF, Office files, audio, YouTube, and Outlook each need an extra, so you must request them in the uvx call — otherwise the run fails with a missing-dependency error.

# All formats, simplest — use this unless you have a reason not to:
uvx 'markitdown[all]' input.pdf

# Lighter: pull only the extra you need (faster first run, smaller cache).
# With a single extra the command name no longer matches the package spec,
# so name it explicitly with --from:
uvx --from 'markitdown[pdf]'  markitdown input.pdf
uvx --from 'markitdown[docx]' markitdown report.docx -o report.md

Available extras: pptx, docx, xlsx, xls, pdf, outlook, audio-transcription, youtube-transcription, az-doc-intel, az-content-understanding, and all.

Basic Usage

# To stdout
uvx 'markitdown[all]' input.pdf

# To a file
uvx 'markitdown[all]' input.pdf -o output.md
uvx 'markitdown[all]' input.docx > output.md

# From stdin — give a type hint since there's no filename to sniff
cat input.pdf | uvx 'markitdown[all]' -x .pdf > output.md

Supported Formats

• Documents: PDF, Word (.docx), PowerPoint (.pptx), Excel (.xlsx, .xls)
• Web/Data: HTML, CSV, JSON, XML
• Media: Images (EXIF + OCR), Audio (EXIF + transcription)
• Mail: Outlook (.msg)
• Other: ZIP (iterates contents), YouTube URLs, EPub

Options

-o, --output OUTPUT     # Output file (default: stdout)
-x, --extension EXT     # Hint file extension (for stdin), e.g. .pdf
-m, --mime-type MIME    # Hint MIME type
-c, --charset CHARSET   # Hint charset, e.g. UTF-8
--keep-data-uris        # Keep base64 images in output (truncated by default)
-p, --use-plugins       # Enable 3rd-party plugins
--list-plugins          # List installed plugins
-d, --use-docintel      # Use Azure Document Intelligence (requires -e)
-e, --endpoint URL      # Document Intelligence endpoint
--use-cu                # Use Azure Content Understanding (requires --cu-endpoint)
--cu-endpoint URL       # Content Understanding endpoint
--cu-analyzer ID        # Content Understanding analyzer (auto-selected if omitted)
--cu-file-types LIST    # Comma-separated types to route to Content Understanding
-v, --version           # Print version

-d and --use-cu are mutually exclusive — pick one cloud path, or neither for fully offline conversion.

Examples

# Word document
uvx 'markitdown[all]' report.docx -o report.md

# Excel spreadsheet
uvx 'markitdown[all]' data.xlsx > data.md

# PowerPoint presentation
uvx 'markitdown[all]' slides.pptx -o slides.md

# Keep embedded images (e.g. for downstream OCR) instead of truncating them
uvx 'markitdown[all]' brochure.pdf --keep-data-uris -o brochure.md

# Scanned/complex PDF via Azure Document Intelligence
uvx 'markitdown[all]' scan.pdf -d -e "https://your-resource.cognitiveservices.azure.com/"

Notes

• Output preserves document structure: headings, tables, lists, links.
• First run resolves and caches dependencies; later runs are faster. [all] caches more than a single extra.
• Requires Python 3.10+; uvx provisions a suitable interpreter automatically.
• For scanned or layout-heavy PDFs where offline extraction is poor, use -d with Azure Document Intelligence.
• Discover plugins by searching GitHub for the #markitdown-plugin topic.

Python API

For programmatic use — LLM-generated image descriptions, byte-stream conversion, or Azure Content Understanding analyzers — markitdown exposes a Python API beyond what the CLI covers. See references/python-api.md.

Provenance

This skill is a thin wrapper around markitdown (© Microsoft, MIT licensed), invoked via uvx. markitdown does the actual conversion; this skill documents the workflow and is not affiliated with Microsoft. The optional -d / --use-cu paths use Azure services, which require your own Azure resource and credentials.