Alternatives to MarkItDown

Python command-line tool that converts PDFs, Office files and other documents into Markdown. The listings below can replace it for an important use case. Each note says what changes if you switch.

Replacements

Listings that take over the same core job as MarkItDown.

  • Marker

    An open-source tool that converts PDFs and other documents to Markdown, JSON and HTML.

    FreeOpen sourceSelf-hostedCommand line

    Marker converts PDFs and other documents to Markdown, JSON and HTML with table and equation handling, but needs a Python environment and benefits from a GPU.

  • MinerU

    A document parser that converts PDFs, Office files and scans into Markdown and JSON.

    FreeProprietarySelf-hostedCommand line

    MinerU parses PDFs, Office files and scans into Markdown and JSON with OCR, but setup and model downloads suit technical users and its licence is non-standard.

  • olmOCR

    Open-source toolkit that uses a vision language model to turn PDFs and scans into Markdown.

    FreeOpen sourceLinuxCommand line

    olmOCR uses a vision language model to turn PDFs and scans into Markdown, handling handwriting and complex layouts, but it requires a capable GPU on Linux.

  • PaddleOCR

    OCR toolkit that turns PDFs and images into structured data.

    FreeOpen sourceWindowsmacOSLinuxCommand line

    PaddleOCR parses PDFs and images into JSON and Markdown with layout and table recognition, but depends on the large PaddlePaddle framework and lacks Office input.

Similar software

Related functionality, not a direct replacement.