| name | pdf-to-md |
| version | 1.1.0 |
| description | Convert PDF to Markdown so Claude can read it natively in conversations.
Three-tier engine: pymupdf4llm (fast, default), marker-pdf (--quality, Apple
MPS-accelerated for scanned/equations), docling (--best, IBM, top accuracy
on academic/enterprise PDFs). Auto-extracts images. Use when the user pastes
a PDF path, asks "read this paper", "convert this PDF", "summarize this
report", or whenever a .pdf needs to enter context.
|
| triggers | ["convert pdf to markdown","read this pdf","summarize this paper","pdf to md","parse this pdf"] |
| allowed-tools | ["Bash","Read","Write"] |
PDF โ Markdown
When to use
Whenever a .pdf file appears in the conversation and the user wants Claude to read, summarize, quote, or operate on its contents. Native Read tool can open small PDFs but truncates large ones and loses table structure โ this skill produces a clean .md you can read fully and grep.
How to invoke
One command does everything (auto-installs missing deps on first run):
python3 ~/.claude/skills/pdf-to-md/bin/convert.py <path-to-pdf>
Output: writes <same-dir>/<same-name>.md next to the PDF, plus an <same-name>_images/ folder if images are extracted.
Common flags:
--quality โ force the marker-pdf engine (use for scanned PDFs, academic papers with equations, or when the fast engine output looks sparse)--out <path> โ override output path--engine pymupdf4llm|marker โ pick engine explicitly--no-images โ skip image extraction
After conversion, Read the produced .md.
Engine selection (auto)
| PDF type | Engine | Why |
|---|
| Native (most modern PDFs, has selectable text) | pymupdf4llm | <30s install, no models, fastest, ~520 pages/sec |
| Scanned (no extractable text detected) | auto-fallback to marker-pdf | Has OCR + layout model |
| Heavy LaTeX / complex tables | use --quality to force marker-pdf | LLM-optimized table + equation extraction |
The script auto-detects scanned PDFs (text density check) and switches engines without user intervention.
First-run gotchas (tell the user)
- pymupdf4llm: installs in ~15s, no model download. Just works.
- marker-pdf: first run downloads ~2GB of models from HuggingFace. Subsequent runs are fast. If on slow wifi, warn the user before triggering
--quality.
- Apple Silicon: both tools have prebuilt wheels โ no compilation needed.
Examples
python3 ~/.claude/skills/pdf-to-md/bin/convert.py ~/Downloads/paper.pdf
python3 ~/.claude/skills/pdf-to-md/bin/convert.py ~/Downloads/paper.pdf --quality
python3 ~/.claude/skills/pdf-to-md/bin/convert.py report.pdf --out /tmp/report.md --no-images
What this skill does NOT do
- Does not handle Office docs (use
markitdown or pandoc for .docx/.pptx)
- Does not call cloud APIs (LlamaParse, Mistral OCR) โ pure local. Add a flag later if bulk volume requires it.
- Does not transcribe handwritten PDFs (Tesseract-grade OCR only).
