A tool that easily converts multiple file formats to Markdown, Star 45K+!

Written by

Jasper Cole

Updated on:July-01st-2025

With the widespread use and implementation of LLM (Large Language Model) applications, Markdown documents are preferred by various LLM and RAG (Retrieval Enhanced Generation), mainly in the following two aspects:

First of all, Markdown is a lightweight markup language that is concise and easy to read and write, making it an ideal choice for writing and storing documents, especially when these documents need to be processed by LLM or enhanced by the RAG model.

Secondly, the structured nature of Markdown makes it more efficient when processing text. For example, when vectorizing documents, it is necessary to perform structured segmentation on the Markdown file according to the title level. This standardized structured segmentation retains the context and structural information of the text, which is very important for the RAG model and helps improve the effect of text vectorization and RAG retrieval.

Therefore, file format conversion becomes particularly important. Whether it is to structure PDF, Word documents, Excel tables, or PPT presentations, we often need to process them into Markdown format. Today, we are going to introduce this multi-functional document conversion tool open sourced by Microsoft - MarkItDown.

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Introduction to MarkItDown

A lightweight Python utility that converts various files to Markdown format for use with large language models (LLMs) and related text analysis pipelines. Compared with traditional text extraction tools, MarkItDown focuses more on preserving important document structure and content, such as titles, lists, tables, links, etc. Although its output is mainly intended for use by text analysis tools, it is undoubtedly a powerful tool for users who need to quickly convert multiple file formats to Markdown.

? Project Information

# GitHub address https://github.com/microsoft/markitdown

? Features

1. Multi-format support

MarkItDown supports a wide variety of file formats, covering common office and multimedia file types, including:

PDF
PowerPoint
Word
Excel
Images (EXIF metadata and OCR)
Audio (EXIF metadata and speech transcription)
HTML
Text-based formats (CSV, JSON, XML)
ZIP file
Youtube URL
EPubs

2. Flexible configuration options

Optional dependencies : MarkItDown provides a variety of optional dependencies, users can install specific dependencies as needed, such as pip install markitdown[pdf, docx, pptx] Only dependencies for PDF, DOCX, and PPTX files are installed.
Plugin support : MarkItDown supports third-party plugins, and users can extend its functionality through plugins. Plugins are disabled by default and can be enabled through markitdown --use-plugins Command enabled.

3. Integration with large language models

MarkItDown supports integration with large language models such as GPT-4, and can generate rich descriptive output, such as analysis and description of images. Users can provide llm_client and llm_model parameter to enable this feature.

4. Other Features

Docker support : MarkItDown provides a Docker image, and users can quickly deploy and use the tool through Docker.
Command line and Python API : MarkItDown provides command line tools and Python API, and users can choose to use it according to their needs.
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MarkItDown Installation

MarkItDown can be quickly installed with a simple pip command

pip install 'markitdown[all]'

Or install from source:

git clone git@github.com:microsoft/markitdown.gitcd markitdownpip install -e packages/markitdown[all]

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Use of MarkItDown

1. Command line usage

Basic usage : Convert a file to Markdown format and output it to the console.

markitdown path-to-file.pdf

Specify output file : Use -o The parameter specifies the output file.

markitdown path-to-file.pdf -o document.md

Pipeline input : Input file contents through pipeline.


cat path-to-file.pdf | markitdown

2. Python API Usage

Basic usage : Use MarkItDown to perform file conversion in Python.


from markitdown import MarkItDownmd = MarkItDown(enable_plugins=False) # Disable plug-ins result = md.convert("test.xlsx")print(result.text_content)

Integration with large language models : Image description with GPT-4.


from markitdown import MarkItDownfrom openai import OpenAIclient = OpenAI()md = MarkItDown(llm_client=client, llm_model="gpt-4o")result = md.convert("example.jpg")print(result.text_content)

3. Docker Usage

Build the Docker image :


docker build -t markitdown:latest .

Run the Docker container :

docker run --rm -i markitdown:latest < ~/your-file.pdf > output.md

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at last

As a powerful file conversion tool, MarkItDown provides users with rich functions and convenient usage. It supports the conversion of multiple file formats, and through the plug-in architecture, its functions can be continuously expanded to meet the diverse needs of different users.