davila7/claude-code-templates/markitdown
Claude Code and agent skill by davila7/claude-code-templates
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Convert files and office documents to Markdown. Supports PDF, DOCX, PPTX, XLSX, images (with OCR), audio (with transcription), HTML, CSV, JSON, XML, ZIP, YouTube URLs, EPubs and more.
Install
npx vskill@latest install davila7/claude-code-templates/markitdownSKILL.md
MarkItDown - File to Markdown Conversion
Overview
MarkItDown is a Python tool developed by Microsoft for converting various file formats to Markdown. It's particularly useful for converting documents into LLM-friendly text format, as Markdown is token-efficient and well-understood by modern language models.
Key Benefits:
- Convert documents to clean, structured Markdown
- Token-efficient format for LLM processing
- Supports 15+ file formats
- Optional AI-enhanced image descriptions
- OCR for images and scanned documents
- Speech transcription for audio files
Visual Enhancement with Scientific Schematics
When creating documents with this skill, always consider adding scientific diagrams and schematics to enhance visual communication.
If your document does not already contain schematics or diagrams:
- Use the scientific-schematics skill to generate AI-powered publication-quality diagrams
- Simply describe your desired diagram in natural language
- Nano Banana Pro will automatically generate, review, and refine the schematic
For new documents: Scientific schematics should be generated by default to visually represent key concepts, workflows, architectures, or relationships described in the text.
How to generate schematics:
The AI will automatically:
- Create publication-quality images with proper formatting
- Review and refine through multiple iterations
- Ensure accessibility (colorblind-friendly, high contrast)
- Save outputs in the figures/ directory
When to add schematics:
- Document conversion workflow diagrams
- File format architecture illustrations
- OCR processing pipeline diagrams
- Integration workflow visualizations
- System architecture diagrams
- Data flow diagrams
- Any complex concept that benefits from visualization
For detailed guidance on creating schematics, refer to the scientific-schematics skill documentation.
Supported Formats
| Format | Description | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Portable Document Format | Full text extraction | ||
| DOCX | Microsoft Word | Tables, formatting preserved | |
| PPTX | PowerPoint | Slides with notes | |
| XLSX | Excel spreadsheets | Tables and data | |
| Images | JPEG, PNG, GIF, WebP | EXIF metadata + OCR | |
| Audio | WAV, MP3 | Metadata + transcription | |
| HTML | Web pages | Clean conversion | |
| CSV | Comma-separated values | Table format | |
| JSON | JSON data | Structured representation | |
| XML | XML documents | Structured format | |
| ZIP | Archive files | Iterates contents | |
| EPUB | E-books | Full text extraction | |
| YouTube | Video URLs | Fetch transcriptions |
Quick Start
Installation
Command-Line Usage
Python API
Advanced Features
1. AI-Enhanced Image Descriptions
Use LLMs via OpenRouter to generate detailed image descriptions (for PPTX and image files):
2. Azure Document Intelligence
For enhanced PDF conversion with Microsoft Document Intelligence:
3. Plugin System
MarkItDown supports 3rd-party plugins for extending functionality:
Find plugins on GitHub with hashtag: #markitdown-plugin
Optional Dependencies
Control which file formats you support:
Common Use Cases
1. Convert Scientific Papers to Markdown
2. Extract Data from Excel for Analysis
3. Process Multiple Documents
4. Convert PowerPoint with AI Descriptions
5. Batch Convert with Different Formats
6. Extract YouTube Video Transcription
Docker Usage
Best Practices
1. Choose the Right Conversion Method
- Simple documents: Use basic
MarkItDown() - Complex PDFs: Use Azure Document Intelligence
- Visual content: Enable AI image descriptions
- Scanned documents: Ensure OCR dependencies are installed
2. Handle Errors Gracefully
3. Process Large Files Efficiently
4. Optimize for Token Efficiency
Markdown output is already token-efficient, but you can:
- Remove excessive whitespace
- Consolidate similar sections
- Strip metadata if not needed
Integration with Scientific Workflows
Convert Literature for Review
Extract Tables for Analysis
Troubleshooting
Common Issues
- Missing dependencies: Install feature-specific packages
``bash pip install 'markitdown[pdf]' # For PDF support ``
- Binary file errors: Ensure files are opened in binary mode
``python with open("file.pdf", "rb") as f: # Note the "rb" result = md.convert_stream(f, file_extension=".pdf") ``
- OCR not working: Install tesseract
```bash # macOS brew install tesseract
# Ubuntu sudo apt-get install tesseract-ocr ```
Performance Considerations
- PDF files: Large PDFs may take time; consider page ranges if supported
- Image OCR: OCR processing is CPU-intensive
- Audio transcription: Requires additional compute resources
- AI image descriptions: Requires API calls (costs may apply)
Next Steps
- See
references/api_reference.mdfor complete API documentation - Check
references/file_formats.mdfor format-specific details - Review
scripts/batch_convert.pyfor automation examples - Explore
scripts/convert_with_ai.pyfor AI-enhanced conversions
Resources
This is the start of the file. Read the full SKILL.md on GitHub.
Security
- Security scanPassed, 95 of 100Pattern checks on the skill's files.
- Model reviewPassed
Quality evaluation
- Task evaluationNot runNo evaluation yet. Run one in Skill Studio.
Source
- SKILL.md in the repositoryCheckingcli-tool/components/skills/scientific/markitdown/SKILL.md
Popularity
- Repository stars
- 26,678
- Repository forks
- 2,675
- Repository npm downloads, 7 days
- 5,361
- 7-day trend score
- 71
Stars and forks are for the whole GitHub repository, not this skill alone. Downloads are for the repository's npm package. Refreshed 4 May 2026, 6 months ago.
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