markitdown

Files (7)

• SKILL.md
• example_usage.md · assets/
• api_reference.md · references/
• file_formats.md · references/
• batch_convert.py · scripts/
• convert_literature.py · scripts/
• convert_with_ai.py · scripts/

SKILL.md (first lines)

# MarkItDown - File to Markdown Conversion

## Overview

MarkItDown is a Python tool developed by Microsoft for converting various file formats to Markdown. It's particularly useful for converting documents into LLM-friendly text format, as Markdown is token-efficient and well-understood by modern language models.

**Key Benefits**:
- Convert documents to clean, structured Markdown
- Token-efficient format for LLM processing
- Supports 15+ file formats
- Optional AI-enhanced image descriptions
- OCR for images and scanned documents
- Speech transcription for audio files

## Visual Enhancement with Scientific Schematics

**When creating documents with this skill, always consider adding scientific diagrams and schematics to enhance visual communication.**

If your document does not already contain schematics or diagrams:
- Use the **scientific-schematics** skill to generate AI-powered publication-quality diagrams
- Simply describe your desired diagram in natural language
- Nano Banana Pro will automatically generate, review, and refine the schematic

**For new documents:** Scientific schematics should be generated by default to visually represent key concepts, workflows, architectures, or relationships described in the text.

**How to generate schematics:**
```bash
python scripts/generate_schematic.py "your diagram description" -o figures/output.png
```

The AI will automatically:
- Create publication-quality images with proper formatting
- Review and refine through multiple iterations
- Ensure accessibility (colorblind-friendly, high contrast)
- Save outputs in the figures/ directory

**When to add schematics:**
- Document conversion workflow diagrams
- File format architecture illustrations
- OCR processing pipeline diagrams
- Integration workflow visualizations
- System architecture diagrams
- Data flow diagrams
- Any complex concept that benefits from visualization

For detailed guidance on creating schematics, refer to the scientific-schematics skill documentation.

---

## Supported Formats

| Format | Description | Notes |
|--------|-------------|-------|
| **PDF** | Portable Document Format | Full text extraction |
| **DOCX** | Microsoft Word | Tables, formatting preserved |
| **PPTX** | PowerPoint | Slides with notes |
| **XLSX** | Excel spreadsheets | Tables and data |
| **Images** | JPEG, PNG, GIF, WebP | EXIF metadata + OCR |
| **Audio** | WAV, MP3 | Metadata + transcription |
| **HTML** | Web pages | Clean conversion |
| **CSV** | Comma-separated values | Table format |
| **JSON** | JSON data | Structured representation |
| **XML** | XML documents | Structured format |
| **ZIP** | Archive files | Iterates contents |
| **EPUB** | E-books | Full text extraction |
| **YouTube** | Video URLs | Fetch transcriptions |

## Quick Start

### Installation

**IMPORTANT**: Always use the virtual environment at `~/.claude/venv` to avoid system package conflicts:

```bash
# Activate venv
source ~/.claude/venv/bin/activate

# Install with all features
pip install 'markitdown[all]'

# Or from source
git clone https://github.com/microsoft/markitdown.git
cd markitdown
pip install -e 'packages/markitdown[all]'

# Run commands using venv python
~/.claude/venv/bin/python -m markitdown document.pdf
```

### Command-Line Usage

```bash
# Basic conversion
markitdown document.pdf > output.md

# Specify output file
markitdown document.pdf -o output.md

# Pipe content
cat document.pdf | markitdown > output.md

# Enable plugins
markitdown --list-plugins  # List available plugins
markitdown --use-plugins document.pdf -o output.md
```

### Python API

```python
from markitdown import MarkItDown

# Basic usage
md = MarkItDown()
result = md.convert("document.pdf")
print(result.text_content)

# Convert from stream
with open("document.pdf", "rb") as f:
    result = md.convert_stream(f, file_extension=".pdf")

From imvladikon/dot-claude, MIT.

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