Markitdown

MarkItDown Skill

When to Activate

Activate this skill when the user asks to:

• Extract text from PDF documents
• Convert Word documents to Markdown
• Convert Excel spreadsheets to Markdown tables
• Convert PowerPoint presentations to Markdown
• Convert HTML pages to Markdown
• Extract text from images (OCR)
• Convert EPUB e-books to Markdown
• Extract content from email files (.msg, .eml)

Prerequisites

• markitdown must be installed and available in PATH.
• Install with: pip install 'markitdown[all]'

Hard Rule

For document conversion tasks, always use markitdown CLI.

• Do not use the MarkItDown MCP server — it has been replaced by this CLI skill.
• Do not use alternative tools unless markitdown cannot handle the format.

Installation

pip install 'markitdown[all]'

Command Reference

Basic Usage

markitdown <file_path_or_url>

Convert Local Files

markitdown document.pdf
markitdown presentation.pptx
markitdown spreadsheet.xlsx
markitdown document.docx
markitdown page.html
markitdown ebook.epub
markitdown email.msg

Convert from URL

markitdown https://example.com/document.pdf
markitdown https://example.com/page.html

Save Output to File

markitdown document.pdf > output.md

Read from Stdin

cat document.pdf | markitdown
curl -s https://example.com/doc.pdf | markitdown

Supported Formats

Workflows

Extract Text from PDF

1. Verify the file exists:

   ls -la document.pdf
   

2. Convert to Markdown:

   markitdown document.pdf
   

Convert Excel to Markdown Table

markitdown data.xlsx

Convert PowerPoint Presentation

markitdown slides.pptx

Convert Web Page from URL

markitdown https://example.com/article.html

Process Multiple Files

for file in *.pdf; do
  echo "=== $file ==="
  markitdown "$file"
done

Batch Convert with Output Files

for file in *.pdf; do
  markitdown "$file" > "${file%.pdf}.md"
done

Output Handling

Preview Large Output

For large documents, preview the first part:

markitdown large-document.pdf | head -100

Count Output Lines

markitdown document.pdf | wc -l

Search in Output

markitdown document.pdf | grep -i "keyword"

Error Handling

SSL Certificate Errors (macOS)

If you encounter SSL errors on macOS:

1. Install OpenSSL:

   brew install openssl@3
   

2. Set the environment variable:

   export SSL_CERT_FILE=/opt/homebrew/etc/openssl@3/cert.pem
   markitdown https://example.com/document.pdf
   

File Not Found

Always verify the file exists before conversion:

if [ -f "document.pdf" ]; then
  markitdown document.pdf
else
  echo "File not found: document.pdf"
fi

URL Not Accessible

For URLs requiring authentication, download first:

curl -H "Authorization: Bearer token" -o doc.pdf "https://api.example.com/doc.pdf"
markitdown doc.pdf

Tips

1. Large Files: Very large files may produce extensive output. Consider piping to head or saving to a file.

2. URLs with Special Characters: Quote URLs properly:

   markitdown "https://example.com/doc with spaces.pdf"
   

3. Combine with Other Tools: Use pipes for powerful workflows:

   markitdown document.pdf | grep -A5 "Chapter 1"
   

4. Check Installation: Verify markitdown is installed:

   which markitdown && markitdown --help
   

Troubleshooting

• "markitdown: command not found" → Install with pip install 'markitdown[all]'
• SSL certificate errors → Set SSL_CERT_FILE environment variable (macOS)
• Empty output → The file may be empty, corrupted, or in an unsupported format
• Permission denied → Check file permissions with ls -la <file>