Learn-skills.dev markitdown

Convert local documents to Markdown using Microsoft's markitdown CLI. Best for: PDF, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, images (OCR), audio. Can fetch URLs but Jina is faster for web. Triggers on: convert to markdown, read PDF, parse document, extract text from, docx, xlsx, pptx, OCR image, local file.

install

source · Clone the upstream repo

git clone https://github.com/NeverSight/learn-skills.dev

Claude Code · Install into ~/.claude/skills/

T=$(mktemp -d) && git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/NeverSight/learn-skills.dev "$T" && mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills && cp -r "$T/data/skills-md/0xdarkmatter/claude-mods/markitdown" ~/.claude/skills/neversight-learn-skills-dev-markitdown && rm -rf "$T"

manifest: data/skills-md/0xdarkmatter/claude-mods/markitdown/SKILL.md

source content

markitdown - Document to Markdown

Convert local documents to clean Markdown. One tool for PDF, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, images, and more.

When to Use markitdown

Use Case	Recommendation
Local files (PDF, Word, Excel)	✅ Use markitdown - unique capability
Web pages	❌ Use Jina ( `r.jina.ai/` ) - 5x faster
Blocked/anti-bot sites	❌ Use Firecrawl
OCR on images	✅ Use markitdown
Audio transcription	✅ Use markitdown

Basic Usage

# Local files (primary use case)
markitdown document.pdf
markitdown report.docx
markitdown data.xlsx
markitdown slides.pptx
markitdown screenshot.png    # OCR

# URLs (works, but Jina is faster)
markitdown https://example.com

# Save output
markitdown document.pdf > document.md

Supported Formats

Format	Extensions	Notes
PDF	`.pdf`	Text extraction, tables
Word	`.docx`	Formatting preserved
Excel	`.xlsx`	Tables to markdown
PowerPoint	`.pptx`	Slides as sections
Images	`.jpg` , `.png`	OCR text extraction
HTML	`.html`	Clean conversion
Audio	`.mp3` , `.wav`	Speech-to-text
Text	`.txt` , `.csv` , `.json` , `.xml`	Pass-through/structure
URLs	`https://...`	Works but slower than Jina

Benchmarked Performance (URLs)

Tool	Avg Speed	Success Rate
Jina	0.5s	10/10
markitdown	2.5s	9/10
Firecrawl	4.5s	10/10

Verdict: For URLs, use Jina. For local files, markitdown is the only option.

Examples

# PDF to markdown (primary use case)
markitdown report.pdf > report.md

# Excel spreadsheet
markitdown financials.xlsx

# Image with text (OCR)
markitdown screenshot.png

# PowerPoint deck
markitdown presentation.pptx > slides.md

# Audio transcription
markitdown meeting.mp3 > transcript.md

Comparison with Alternatives

Task	markitdown	Alternative
PDF text	`markitdown file.pdf`	PyMuPDF, pdfplumber
Word docs	`markitdown file.docx`	python-docx
Excel	`markitdown file.xlsx`	pandas, openpyxl
OCR	`markitdown image.png`	Tesseract
Web pages	Use Jina instead	`r.jina.ai/URL` (5x faster)

markitdown's advantage: One CLI for all local document formats. No code needed.