Help
PDF into MD turns a simple, text-based PDF into Markdown in your browser. This page explains what works, what doesn’t, and what each message means.
What works
- One English PDF at a time, with selectable text (you can select words in a PDF reader).
- Up to 10 MB (10,000,000 bytes) and up to 20 pages. Larger files are refused as a whole; nothing is silently cut off.
- Single-column documents such as briefs, memos, reports and handbooks: headings, paragraphs and simple bulleted or numbered lists.
What doesn’t work yet
- Scanned PDFs. Pages that are images of text have no selectable text. There is no OCR, so these files are refused.
- Multiple columns. Lines from side-by-side columns may appear out of order, mixed together. The words are there, but the text may no longer read correctly.
- Tables are exported as plain text, one line per row, not as Markdown tables. Cells that span several lines may be split apart.
- Equations and images are not converted.
- Password-protected PDFs. We never ask for passwords. Remove the protection in your PDF app first.
Reading the result
- Each page starts with a marker such as
<!-- page: 3 -->. It is an HTML comment, so most Markdown apps don’t display it, and it lets you find the original page. - A word split across two lines with a hyphen may keep that hyphen, for example
ap-provals. We don’t guess, because real hyphenated words (follow-up) look the same. - Heading levels follow text size in the PDF. A line that starts with “1.” or “-” may become a list item.
- Running headers and footers stay in the text as separate lines.
- Always check important numbers, names and dates against the original PDF.
Messages
- This file isn’t a PDF
- The file doesn’t start like a PDF. Renaming a file to .pdf doesn’t change its format.
- This PDF is larger than 10 MB
- The file is over 10,000,000 bytes. It is refused before it is read.
- This PDF has more than 20 pages
- Split the document into parts of up to 20 pages.
- This PDF is password-protected
- Remove the password in your PDF app and save a copy.
- We couldn’t read this PDF
- The file is damaged or incomplete. Open the original and save a new copy.
- This PDF took too long
- Conversion stops after 60 seconds. Try a smaller or simpler file.
- This PDF has no selectable text
- It looks like a scan or an image-only file.
- Some pages have no usable text
- At least one page is empty, looks scanned, or has text that can’t be read correctly. To avoid an incomplete file, nothing is exported. The message lists the pages.
- The converter stopped unexpectedly
- The browser stopped the conversion without an answer, for example when it ran short of memory. Try again or try a smaller file.
Your file
Your PDF is read in this browser tab and is not uploaded. We collect a small set of usage statistics that never include your file, its name or its text. Details are in the Privacy Policy.
Still stuck?
Write to support@pdfintomd.com. Describe the problem, but please don’t attach confidential documents.
Last updated: September 23, 2026.