Python

MarkItDown

Turn any office document into clean Markdown
by microsoft · MIT
166 870stars11 977forksPythonlanguage96 days agolast push
Document AI & OCRDocument converter (Python CLI)MITRuns locallyPythonBeginner

From the README

Install
git clone [email protected]:microsoft/markitdown.git
cd markitdown
pip install -e 'packages/markitdown[all]'

Excerpts from the project README on GitHub. Copyright and licensing remain with the respective authors.

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🐳 Docker pulls 📦 PyPI downloads / month 📦 npm downloads / month 🚀 Latest release ·
Visit website →View on GitHub

What is MarkItDown?

MarkItDown is a Microsoft tool that converts PDF, Word, PowerPoint, Excel, images and audio into Markdown, so documents can be fed to a language model without the formatting noise that wastes tokens and confuses retrieval.

Why people choose MarkItDown

MarkItDown at a glance

CategoryDocument AI & OCR
TypeDocument converter (Python CLI)
LicenseMIT
Runs locallyYes
Built withPython
Skill levelBeginner
Best foranyone preparing office documents for RAG or a long-context prompt
See GitHub stats & activity

Open-source alternatives to MarkItDown

Other open-source document ai & ocr tools worth comparing:

MarkerConvert PDFs to clean Markdown fastDoclingIBM-grade document understandingSuryaModern OCR with layout detectionPaddleOCRIndustrial OCR with tiny modelsUnstructuredTurn any file into LLM-ready dataFirecrawlTurn websites into LLM-ready MarkdownCrawl4AIOpen-source LLM-friendly crawlerolmOCRTurn PDFs into clean training-grade textMinerUPDF to Markdown with formulas and tablesTesseractThe classic OCR engine

MarkItDown head-to-head

MarkItDown vs MarkerMarkItDown vs DoclingMarkItDown vs SuryaMarkItDown vs PaddleOCRMarkItDown vs UnstructuredMarkItDown vs FirecrawlMarkItDown vs Crawl4AIMarkItDown vs olmOCRMarkItDown vs MinerUMarkItDown vs Tesseract

FAQ

Is MarkItDown free?

MarkItDown is free and open-source (MIT license), so you can use, self-host and modify it at no cost.

Can I run MarkItDown locally?

Yes. MarkItDown is designed to run on your own machine or server, keeping your data private.

What is the best alternative to MarkItDown?

Popular open-source alternatives include Marker, Docling, Surya. See the comparisons above to choose.

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