Need software to convert PDF to markdown

[mindquest]

Looking for the best software to convert a pdf to markdown. Not a lot of options I have found so if there is one that can convert a PDF to an intermediary step like .doc or similar I can use Pandoc to get it to markdown

My pdfs would be 50 - 400 pages in length

Paid tools are fine

 

[kpluck]

Adobe has a free online PDF to Word converter. Would that be an option?

PDF to Word

-kp

 

[mindquest]

Adobe has a free online PDF to Word converter. Would that be an option?

PDF to Word

-kp

Thanks for the reply. I will need this to do multiple large pdfs daily and I bet that size won’t be allowed by the free tool. Some PDFs are 790 pages

 

[Herbert123]

I have done this before with PDF-XChange Editor. Steps:

1. Open the PDF in PDF-XChange Editor
2. Export to Word DocX format (a useful option is available to OCR text as well if necessary)
3. Open the Word document in either LibreOffice or Word (I use LibreOffice)
   
   The document will convert mostly fine, but headings are only maintained with visual formatting rather than defined as actual headings. This is easily fixed by searching and replacing the heading formatting with actual styles.
4. In LibreOffice search for a particular heading formatting, i.e. Arial 16 pt. Then click the Find All button and close the search dialog. This selects all headings formatted with Arial 16 pt.
5. Hit F11 to open the Style editor and double-click the heading style that is required. For example, Heading 2.
6. Repeat steps 4 and 5 for all headings.
7. Clean up other stuff such as spaces, empty paragraphs, etc.
8. Save the cleaned up version.

Then convert with Pandoc to markdown.

The only drawback: PDF-Xchange Editor isn't available for the Mac... 😥

PS the search and replace can be macro'd to speed things up.

 

[Slartibart]

use markeitdown - it directly converts e.g. PDF, Word, Excel, PowerPoint.

EDIT: another option is docling.