markitdown

A command-line tool from Microsoft that converts many file types into Markdown, a plain-text format useful for reading and analysis. It can process documents, spreadsheets, presentations, web pages, images, audio, and other supported inputs.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to extract text from PDFs, DOCX files, PPTX files, XLSX files, HTML, notebooks, images, audio, archives, and supported URLs, then print or save the Markdown.
Why use it?
It gives text-analysis tools and AI systems a common format instead of requiring separate handling for every file type.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/fprochazka/claude-code-plugins/markitdown
Any agent
npx skills add fprochazka/claude-code-plugins --skill markitdown
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/fprochazka/claude-code-plugins

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Per session 73 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 689 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 1 finding. Scan, not verified.
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.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5 $0.00073 $0.00689
Opus 5 $0.00036 $0.00345
Sonnet 5 $0.00015 $0.00138
Haiku 4.5 $0.00007 $0.00069

Measured 2d ago against content hash 4601ee9f996f, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

markitdown scanned grade A with 1 finding 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 2d ago.

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.

Makes network callslowCapability

Not a fault in itself. Listed so you know the mod talks to something, and to what.

### Convert from URL (via curl)
plugins/markitdown/skills/markitdown/SKILL.md · 84 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 84 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

markitdown

Command-line tool for converting various file formats to Markdown. Built by Microsoft for LLM and text analysis pipelines.

Basic Usage

markitdown document.pdf                    # Convert, output to stdout
markitdown document.pdf -o output.md       # Convert, write to file
cat document.pdf | markitdown              # Convert from stdin
markitdown document.pdf > output.md        # Redirect stdout to file
markitdown < document.pdf                  # Redirect stdin

Supported Formats

Converted without any extras: HTML, CSV, JSON, XML, plain text, ZIP (iterates contents), EPub, Jupyter notebooks (.ipynb), RSS feeds, Wikipedia URLs, Bing SERP results.

With extras installed: PDF, DOCX, PPTX, XLSX, XLS, Outlook MSG, images (EXIF metadata + optional LLM captioning), audio (EXIF metadata + optional transcription), YouTube URLs (transcript extraction).

Options

markitdown -v                              # Show version
markitdown -o FILE                         # Write output to file instead of stdout
markitdown -x .pdf                         # Hint file extension (useful with stdin)
markitdown -m application/pdf              # Hint MIME type
markitdown -c UTF-8                        # Hint charset
markitdown --keep-data-uris                # Keep base64-encoded data URIs in output (truncated by default)

Azure Document Intelligence

For higher-quality extraction using cloud OCR:

markitdown -d -e "https://your-endpoint.cognitiveservices.azure.com" document.pdf

Plugins

Third-party plugins extend format support via the markitdown.plugin entry point:

markitdown --list-plugins                  # List installed plugins
markitdown -p document.xyz                 # Enable plugins for conversion

Common Patterns

Convert a file and pipe to another tool

markitdown report.pdf | wc -w                       # Word count
markitdown report.pdf | head -50                     # Preview first 50 lines

Read the full file on GitHub · 84 lines

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.

  1. 2d ago First seen · 84 lines · 73 tokens per session scan A 4601ee9f996f

Subscribe to this mod's changes

markitdown is a skill published in the GitHub repository fprochazka/claude-code-plugins (11 stars, last pushed 4d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 73 tokens to every session and 689 once invoked, about $0.0004 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 1 finding (makes network calls). No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.

Related

Other skills, from other repositories

general-video

Author or edit a custom HyperFrames composition when no specialized workflow fits, or when BRIEF.md sets flow: companion. Use for longer or multi-scene pieces, brand and sizzle reels, montages, static loops, static title cards, footage remixes, and freeform builds. Use motion-graphics instead for a short unnarrated…

heygen-com/hyperframes · 92 tokens

media-ingest

Ingest video, audio, PDF, book, screenshot, and GitHub repo content into the brain. Multi-format handling with entity extraction and backlink propagation. Covers video-ingest, youtube-ingest, and book-ingest subtypes.

garrytan/gbrain · 52 tokens

diagnostic-stem-delivery

Audio production with diagnostic analysis, timecode parsing from documents, and verified export workflow.

HKUDS/OpenSpace · 23 tokens

vox-director

Turn ONE topic into a finished Vox-style paper-collage explainer / ad video, end to end on the Atlas Cloud API + local ffmpeg — script, collage keyframes, motion, voice-over, music, captions, all automated. Use this whenever the user wants a "Vox style" video, a paper/torn-paper collage animation, a "motion collage"…

Alisa0808/vox-director · 236 tokens

seedance-vocab-ja

This skill should be used when the user asks for Japanese Seedance 2.0 prompt wording, Japanese cinematic vocabulary, or translation of camera, lighting, action, VFX, audio, and production terms into Japanese.

Emily2040/seedance-2.0 · 50 tokens

model-compatibility

Model family compatibility matrix covering loaders, resolutions, samplers, CFG, VAE, ControlNet, and LoRA compatibility for SD 1.5, SDXL, Flux, SD3, and video models.

artokun/comfyui-mcp · 47 tokens