PDF to Markdown

Client-Side PDF Text Extraction and Markdown (.md) Synthesis

Migrating technical manuals, whitepapers, and documentation out of PDF files into static site generators or Markdown note-taking systems often requires tedious manual reformatting. PDF to Markdown extracts selectable text streams from PDF documents directly inside your web browser and formats them into clean `.md` syntax without uploading files to external servers.

The conversion engine inspects each page's text items, grouping runs into horizontal lines using 2-point vertical `Y` coordinate increments sorted from top to bottom and left to right. When `Auto-Detect Heading Hierarchy` is active, lines with font sizes of `20pt` or larger map to `#` (H1), `15pt` to `19.9pt` map to `##` (H2), and `13pt` to `14.9pt` map to `###` (H3), while inline text runs whose font names contain `bold` or `italic`/`oblique` are wrapped in double-asterisk (`**text**`) and single-asterisk (`*text*`) markers.

Bullet characters (`•`, `-`, `*`) are normalized into `- ` Markdown list items, numbered list prefixes (`1.`, `1)`) are preserved, and excess blank lines are collapsed to clean paragraph breaks. You can prepend a metadata block via `Include YAML Frontmatter`, inspect word and character counts in the `Markdown Content Preview` pane, copy the output with `Copy Markdown`, or save `<filename>.md` via `Download .md File`.

Core Tool Capabilities

• Font-Size Threshold Heading Detection: Evaluates the transformation matrix font scale of each reconstructed line when `Auto-Detect Heading Hierarchy` is enabled (checked by default). Lines rendered at `20pt` or above are prefixed with `# `, lines at `15pt` or above with `## `, and lines at `13pt` or above with `### `.
• Inline Bold, Italic, and List Formatting: Inspects PDF font descriptors on body lines to wrap bold runs in `**bold**` and italic or oblique runs in `*italic*` syntax. Lines beginning with bullet symbols (`• `, `- `, `* `) are standardized to `- ` list items, and numbered list lines (`1. ` or `1) `) are retained.
• YAML Frontmatter and Page Comment Markers: When `Include YAML Frontmatter` is checked (enabled by default), the converter prepends a YAML header block containing `title` (from the file name or PDF Title metadata), `author` and `date` (when `Author` and `CreationDate` exist in the PDF info dictionary), `pages`, and `source`. When unchecked on multi-page PDFs, the output inserts `Page N` HTML comment dividers between pages.
• Markdown Content Preview and Text Metrics: Review the generated Markdown source inside the read-only monospaced `Markdown Content Preview` panel before exporting. The preview header calculates and displays the exact word count and character count (`<N> words • <M> characters`) of the synthesized `.md` string.
• One-Click Clipboard Copy and .md Download: Click `Copy Markdown` to write the complete formatted string directly to your system clipboard (confirming with a `Copied to Clipboard!` indicator), or click `Download .md File` to save a UTF-8 `<filename>.md` file named after your original document.
• Built-In Sample Technical Specification: Test heading classification and frontmatter generation immediately by clicking `Try Sample Document` on the dropzone, which loads a two-page sample technical specification in local browser memory.