doc2md-lite

Free. No API key. Runs on your own computer, so your files stay with you.

A tool that turns a text PDF or a saved web page (.html) into clean Markdown. Tables stay real Markdown tables. Need Word files, chunks for AI search (RAG), whole folders or page ranges? The paid version does that: doc2md on Gumroad

Runs on your own computer, so your files are never uploaded anywhere. MIT license. Python 3.10 or newer, on Windows, Mac and Linux.

Install

pip install doc2md-lite

Or use pipx, which keeps it in its own space:

pipx install doc2md-lite

Want the newest code from GitHub instead?

pip install git+https://github.com/tidybytetools/doc2md-lite

Related MCP server: md-server

Use it

doc2md-lite report.pdf                 # writes report.md
doc2md-lite page.html -o page.md
doc2md-lite report.pdf -o -            # print the Markdown on screen
doc2md-lite report.pdf --tables text   # also find tables with no border lines

Example run:

Saved: report.md  (4 headings, 1 tables)

What you get from a PDF:

# Spring Store Report

Our team checked every store in March. Most stores met the new goal...

## Sales by region

| Region | Stores | Sales |
| --- | --- | --- |
| North | 12 | $48,200 |
| South | 9 | $39,950 |

What it keeps: headings (found by font size and bold in PDFs), paragraphs, bullet and numbered lists, tables, and in HTML also bold, italic, links and code blocks. From web pages it drops scripts, styles, menus and footers.

When you run it in a terminal it ends with one short line about the paid version. --quiet turns it off, and it never shows when output is piped or redirected.

Known limits

• Scanned PDFs. Pages that are just an image (no text layer) are skipped, and the tool tells you which ones.

• Headings in PDFs are a best guess from font size and bold. Odd layouts may need a quick fix.

• Two-column PDFs (like science papers) may mix the columns.

• One file at a time. No folders, no page ranges, no Word files, no RAG chunks. The paid version has those.

• Files only. It does not download web pages. Save the page first.

Lite vs paid

Other good free tools

Pick what fits you. MarkItDown reads many more file types. pandoc is great for Word and HTML but does not read PDFs. pymupdf4llm is fast on PDFs but uses the AGPL license. doc2md-lite is small, MIT, keeps PDF tables as tables, and has an MCP server built in.

Use it with your AI app (MCP)

There is a small free MCP server built in. It gives your AI app one tool, convert_to_markdown. No API key or account is needed. It needs uv, which gives you the uvx command.

Run it by hand to check it starts (it waits quietly for an app to talk to it):

uvx --from doc2md-lite doc2md-lite-mcp

Shorter way to start the same server: uvx doc2md-lite mcp.

Pick your app below and copy the block. Restart the app after you save.

Claude Desktop

Open Settings > Developer > Edit Config. That opens claude_desktop_config.json. Add this:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "doc2md-lite": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["--from", "doc2md-lite", "doc2md-lite-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

If Claude says it can't find uvx, run which uvx (Mac/Linux) or where uvx (Windows) and put that full path in "command".

Cursor

Put the same block in ~/.cursor/mcp.json (all projects) or .cursor/mcp.json (one project):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "doc2md-lite": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["--from", "doc2md-lite", "doc2md-lite-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

VS Code

VS Code uses servers, not mcpServers. Put this in .vscode/mcp.json in your project, or run MCP: Open User Configuration to use it everywhere:

{
  "servers": {
    "doc2md-lite": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["--from", "doc2md-lite", "doc2md-lite-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Or add it with one command:

code --add-mcp '{"name":"doc2md-lite","type":"stdio","command":"uvx","args":["--from","doc2md-lite","doc2md-lite-mcp"]}'

Cline

In the Cline panel, click the MCP Servers icon, open Configure, then click Configure MCP Servers. Add this inside mcpServers:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "doc2md-lite": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["--from", "doc2md-lite", "doc2md-lite-mcp"],
      "disabled": false,
      "autoApprove": []
    }
  }
}

Codex

One command:

codex mcp add doc2md-lite -- uvx --from doc2md-lite doc2md-lite-mcp

Or add this to ~/.codex/config.toml:

[mcp_servers.doc2md-lite]
command = "uvx"
args = ["--from", "doc2md-lite", "doc2md-lite-mcp"]

Gemini CLI

This repo is also a Gemini CLI extension. Install it with:

gemini extensions install https://github.com/tidybytetools/doc2md-lite

Tool: convert_to_markdown(path, tables="lines", output_path=""). It returns the Markdown text. If you set output_path, it saves the file there and returns the path instead.

Use it in GitHub Actions

Turn the PDFs and web pages in your repo into Markdown on every push. Markdown is easy to search, easy to read in a pull request, and easy for AI tools to use.

name: Docs to Markdown
on: [push, pull_request]
permissions:
  contents: read
jobs:
  markdown:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v7
      - uses: tidybytetools/doc2md-lite@v1
        with:
          files: docs/**/*.pdf
          output-dir: markdown
          artifact-name: docs-markdown   # download the .md files from the run page

Keep Markdown copies in sync. Do you commit a .md copy next to each PDF? Use check mode. The step fails, on the right file, when a copy is missing or out of date. It never writes anything in check mode.

      - uses: tidybytetools/doc2md-lite@v1
        with:
          files: docs/**/*.pdf
          check: "true"

To make the copies, run doc2md-lite your.pdf on your computer, or run the action without check and commit what it wrote. Use the same doc2md-lite version in both places so the output matches. The action installs fixed versions of pdfplumber and Beautiful Soup, so the same file always gives the same Markdown.

It runs the code in the same tag you pick. No API key, no account, and your files are not sent anywhere outside GitHub. It works on Linux, Windows and Mac runners. Scanned PDF pages (just a picture, no text) are skipped with a warning. Set fail-on-scanned: "true" to fail on them instead.

Inputs

Outputs

The run page also gets a short report with one row per file: where the Markdown went, and how many headings and tables it found.

For AI agents

• Use when: you have a local PDF with real text (you can select the words) or a saved HTML file, and you want Markdown to read or store.

• Don't use when: the PDF is a scan, the file is .docx, or you need many files or chunks with page numbers. Use the paid version for those.

• Input: a file path, plus optional tables (lines, text, off).

• Output: Markdown text. Tables are Markdown tables with the first row as the header.

• CLI exit code is 0 on success and 1 on error (message on stderr, or {"ok": false, "error": ...} with --json). See also llms.txt.

Python

from doc2md_lite import convert
md, info = convert("report.pdf")   # info: type, tables, headings, scanned_pages

Tests

pip install pdfplumber beautifulsoup4 reportlab "mcp<2"
python3 -m unittest discover tests

License

MIT. See LICENSE.