What is pdf-to-markdown?

A PDF-to-Markdown converter that detects whether a PDF contains selectable text or is scanned. It converts native-text PDFs to Markdown; OCR for scanned PDFs is planned and requires extra setup.

Use it to convert native-text PDF files, choose automatic or explicit conversion modes, and receive the result as JSON with status, page count, and output path.

It turns PDF content into editable Markdown and can identify when a document needs OCR. Complex multi-column layouts may not keep their original structure perfectly.

How andreadellacorte/groove configures Claude Code

Reuse

Borrowing it

Nothing to install: this file belongs to andreadellacorte/groove. Take a copy, put it at the same path in your own repository, and replace the rules that are about this project with yours.

Copy the file

curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/andreadellacorte/groove/main/.agents/skills/pdf-to-markdown/SKILL.md

Clone the repo

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/andreadellacorte/groove

Made for: Claude Code.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

README.md

[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/andreadellacorte/groove/pdf-to-markdown/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/andreadellacorte/groove/pdf-to-markdown)

Your own site

<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/andreadellacorte/groove/pdf-to-markdown"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/andreadellacorte/groove/pdf-to-markdown/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>

Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.

Your own site · 80×15

<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/andreadellacorte/groove/pdf-to-markdown"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/andreadellacorte/groove/pdf-to-markdown.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>

Per session 29 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.

When invoked 972 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.

Security scan A 0 findings. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe.

Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.

Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

Model	Per session	Once invoked
Fable 5.1	$0.00029	$0.00972
Opus 5.5	$0.00012	$0.00389
Sonnet 5.5	$0.00006	$0.00194
Haiku 4.5	$0.00003	$0.00097

Measured 2mo ago against content hash 0f897d50e425, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-10-07, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

pdf-to-markdown scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 2mo ago.

The scan reads SKILL.md. This mod also ships 7 executable files (scripts/convert.cjs, scripts/lib/converter.cjs, scripts/lib/output-handler.cjs, …), listed below but not scanned — reading those needs a real analyzer, not pattern matching.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

.agents/skills/pdf-to-markdown/SKILL.md · 121 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 121 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

[IMPORTANT] Use TaskCreate to break ALL work into small tasks BEFORE starting — including tasks for each file read. This prevents context loss from long files. For simple tasks, AI MUST ask user whether to skip.

Quick Summary

Goal: Convert PDF files to well-formatted Markdown with auto-detection of native text vs scanned documents. Only native-text conversion is implemented; OCR is planned.

Workflow:

Auto-Detect — Determine if PDF has native text or needs OCR
Convert — Run scripts/convert.cjs with input path and optional mode/output flags
Output — Returns JSON with success status, page count, and output path

Key Rules:

Use --mode auto (default) to let the tool decide native vs OCR
OCR for scanned PDFs requires additional tesseract.js setup
Complex multi-column layouts may not preserve structure perfectly

pdf-to-markdown

Convert PDF files to Markdown format with automatic detection of native text vs scanned documents.

No npm install required

The skill runs with Node.js only; no node_modules in the repo. It uses npx to run @opendocsg/pdf2md on first use (cached by npx). Optional: run npm install in the skill directory for faster runs without npx.

Requirements: Node.js ≥18, npx (included with npm).

Quick Start

# Basic conversion (auto-detect native vs scanned)
node .agents/skills/pdf-to-markdown/scripts/convert.cjs --input ./document.pdf

# Specify output path
node .agents/skills/pdf-to-markdown/scripts/convert.cjs -i ./doc.pdf -o ./output.md

# Force native mode (skip OCR detection)
node .agents/skills/pdf-to-markdown/scripts/convert.cjs -i ./doc.pdf --mode native

CLI Options

Option	Short	Description	Default
`--input`	`-i`	Input PDF file path	(required)
`--output`	`-o`	Output markdown file path	`{input}.md`
`--mode`	`-m`	Conversion mode: `auto`, `native`, `ocr`	`auto`
`--help`	`-h`	Show help message

Read the full file on GitHub · 121 lines

Files

What ships with it

8 files beside SKILL.md in the same directory: the scripts, references and assets a skill reads on demand. Not counted in the per-session cost; read them before you install if any of them is executable.

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

2mo ago First seen · 121 lines · 29 tokens per session scan A 0f897d50e425

Subscribe to this mod's changes

pdf-to-markdown is a skill published in the GitHub repository andreadellacorte/groove (6 stars, last pushed 3mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 29 tokens to every session and 972 once invoked, about $0.0001 per session on Opus 5.5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-31.

Documents PDF

pdf-to-markdown next to 6 skills from other repositories
Mod	Type	Stars	Last push	Licence	Scan	Tokens	Works with
pdf-to-markdownandreadellacorte/groove	Skill	6	3mo ago	MIT	A	29	Claude Code
apify-youtube-transcript-scrapersickn33/agentic-awesome-skills	Skill	49k	today	MIT	A	48	Claude Code
foundry-hosted-agent-validationmicrosoft/agent-framework	Skill	15k	yesterday	MIT	A	82	Claude Code, Codex
skill-doc-deliverynyldn/claude-octopus	Skill	4.4k	today	MIT	A	29	Claude Code
meta-web-to-pdf-briefingopensquilla/opensquilla	Skill	7.1k	6d ago	Apache-2.0	A	45	Claude Code, Codex
paper-readerhuangkiki/dailypaper-skills	Skill	1.3k	5d ago	Apache-2.0	A	135	Claude Code, Codex
chat-complex-documentsvellum-ai/vellum-assistant	Skill	1.5k	2d ago	MIT	A	90	Claude Code, Codex

groove: Skill for Claude Code