How do I install the Markdown Converter skill?

Run npx skillmds@latest add team-commonly/markdown-converter in your terminal (requires Node.js), paste this page's agent-chat prompt into Claude, Cursor, or any MCP-connected agent, or download the SKILL.md file and copy it into your agent's skills directory.

Is Markdown Converter safe to use?

This skill has not completed SkillMD's automated safety review yet. SkillMD never runs a skill's scripts for you; review the SKILL.md before installing.

Which AI agents work with Markdown Converter?

This skill is tagged as working with Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex. SKILL.md is an open format, so most agents that read a skills directory can load it too.

Is Markdown Converter free to use?

Yes. Installing skills from SkillMD is free, and the skill stays under its author's original license.

Who published Markdown Converter?

team-commonly (@team-commonly) published this skill. Their other Agent Skills are listed on their SkillMD profile.

Markdown Converter by team-commonly

Name: Markdown Converter
Author: team-commonly

Markdown Converter

Convert binary documents (PDF, DOCX, XLSX, PPTX, HTML, EPUB, images) to clean LLM-friendly Markdown using Microsoft's `markitdown` Python tool. Use when a user attaches a binary file and you need to read its contents.

File contents

markdown-converter — binary doc → markdown for agent input

markitdown is installed via pip3 install markitdown and is on PATH. It extracts text content from a wide range of binary formats and emits clean markdown that's efficient for LLM context.

Supported input formats

PDF, DOCX, XLSX, PPTX, HTML, EPUB, images (with OCR), CSV, JSON, audio transcripts, ZIP archives.

Basic usage

# Convert a single file to markdown on stdout
markitdown /workspace/$(basename "$PWD")/input.pdf

# Save to a markdown file
markitdown /workspace/$(basename "$PWD")/input.docx > /workspace/$(basename "$PWD")/input.md

# Convert and pipe directly into another tool
markitdown /workspace/$(basename "$PWD")/spec.xlsx | head -200

Reading a user-attached file

Files attached by users are downloaded to the agent workspace by the gateway. Once you have a workspace path:

# 1. Convert the binary to markdown
markitdown /workspace/$(basename "$PWD")/uploads/report.pdf > /tmp/report.md

# 2. Read the markdown into your context
cat /tmp/report.md

Then summarize, answer questions about it, or feed sections back to the user.

Useful flags

Flag	Effect
`--use-docintel <ENDPOINT>`	Use Azure Doc Intelligence (requires API key) for OCR-heavy PDFs
`-o <file>`	Write to file instead of stdout

When NOT to use markdown-converter

For producing documents (md → DOCX/PDF/XLSX) → use officecli or pandic-office instead.
For PDF manipulation (extract specific pages, merge files) → use the pdf skill.

Troubleshooting

OCR-heavy scanned PDF returns garbage — markitdown uses basic text extraction. If the PDF is image-only, the result will be empty or unhelpful. Mention this limitation to the user.
XLSX with charts — markitdown extracts cell data but ignores embedded charts. For chart inspection, render the workbook to HTML first via officecli view <file> html.

---name: markdown-converterdescription: Convert binary documents (PDF, DOCX, XLSX, PPTX, HTML, EPUB, images) to clean LLM-friendly Markdown using Microsoft's `markitdown` Python tool. Use when a user attaches a binary file and you need to read its contents.---# markdown-converter — binary doc → markdown for agent input`markitdown` is installed via `pip3 install markitdown` and is on PATH. Itextracts text content from a wide range of binary formats and emits cleanmarkdown that's efficient for LLM context.## Supported input formatsPDF, DOCX, XLSX, PPTX, HTML, EPUB, images (with OCR), CSV, JSON, audiotranscripts, ZIP archives.## Basic usage```bash# Convert a single file to markdown on stdoutmarkitdown /workspace/$(basename "$PWD")/input.pdf# Save to a markdown filemarkitdown /workspace/$(basename "$PWD")/input.docx > /workspace/$(basename "$PWD")/input.md# Convert and pipe directly into another toolmarkitdown /workspace/$(basename "$PWD")/spec.xlsx | head -200```## Reading a user-attached fileFiles attached by users are downloaded to the agent workspace by the gateway.Once you have a workspace path:```bash# 1. Convert the binary to markdownmarkitdown /workspace/$(basename "$PWD")/uploads/report.pdf > /tmp/report.md# 2. Read the markdown into your contextcat /tmp/report.md```Then summarize, answer questions about it, or feed sections back to the user.## Useful flags| Flag | Effect ||------|--------|| `--use-docintel <ENDPOINT>` | Use Azure Doc Intelligence (requires API key) for OCR-heavy PDFs || `-o <file>` | Write to file instead of stdout |## When NOT to use markdown-converter- For *producing* documents (md → DOCX/PDF/XLSX) → use `officecli` or `pandic-office` instead.- For PDF manipulation (extract specific pages, merge files) → use the `pdf` skill.## Troubleshooting- **OCR-heavy scanned PDF returns garbage** — markitdown uses basic text extraction. If the PDF is image-only, the result will be empty or unhelpful. Mention this limitation to the user.- **XLSX with charts** — markitdown extracts cell data but ignores embedded charts. For chart inspection, render the workbook to HTML first via `officecli view <file> html`.

Frequently asked questions