Tools

From Microsoft: converts PDF, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, HTML and other files or URLs to Markdown so agents can read and search them. A single convert_to_markdown tool over STDIO or local HTTP.

Converts PDF, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, HTML, images, audio and more into Markdown that keeps headings, lists and tables, ready for LLMs to read and analyze. Maintained by Microsoft; requires Python 3.10+.

Extracts text and tables from PDFs; merges, splits and rotates pages, adds watermarks, fills forms and OCRs scanned documents. The official Anthropic skill behind Claude's document features; source-available, not open source.

Baidu PaddlePaddle's official OCR and document parsing tool: the paddleocr command reads text from images and parses PDFs and scans into Markdown or JSON, supporting 100+ languages with models that run locally.

Official PaddleOCR MCP: text recognition and layout parsing for images and PDFs (PP-OCR, PP-StructureV3, PaddleOCR-VL), returning text or Markdown. Runs inference locally, or calls the official API or a self-hosted service.

Document parser from OpenDataLab that turns PDFs, images and Office files into Markdown or JSON, handling tables, formulas and complex layouts well, with page-by-page reading and citation anchors for agents. Parses locally by default; needs Python 3.10+.

Parses PDF, DOCX, PPTX, XLSX, HTML, images and audio, recovering layout, reading order, tables and formulas, and exports Markdown, HTML or lossless JSON. Started by IBM Research, now hosted by the LF AI & Data Foundation; runs fully locally.

Modern markup-based typesetting system, a LaTeX alternative for papers, reports and resumes. Fast incremental compilation; typst compile outputs a PDF in one command and watch mode recompiles automatically.

Free, open-source offline OCR desktop app for screenshots, batch images, scanned PDFs and QR codes, callable via the umi-ocr CLI or an HTTP API (the CLI relies on the app's local HTTP service, on by default). Windows and Linux only.

Converts PDFs, images, PPTX, DOCX, XLSX, EPUB and more into Markdown, JSON or HTML, preserving tables, formulas and layout, with optional LLM help for higher accuracy. Needs Python 3.10+ and PyTorch; large-scale commercial use of the model weights needs a paid license.

Translates full PDF papers while preserving formulas, charts and layout (command pdf2zh), outputting monolingual and side-by-side bilingual PDFs. Uses Google Translate by default and can switch to DeepL, OpenAI and others; also runs as an MCP server.

Adds a searchable, copyable text layer to scanned PDFs, with automatic deskew, rotation and size optimization, outputting PDF/A by default. Built on Tesseract, supports 100+ languages and runs fully locally.

Distills technical books, doc folders or paper collections (PDF, EPUB, DOCX, Markdown and more) into an agent skill with a core framework, on-demand chapter files, glossary and cheat sheet for lookup while working. Extraction needs local Python; poppler or docling optional for PDFs.

Anthropic's official plugin that opens PDFs in a local interactive viewer where Claude proposes highlights, comments and approval stamps in batches, walks you through form filling, places signature images and exports an annotated copy. Needs Node.js 18+; signatures are not digital certificates.

Open-source e-book manager whose command-line tools (ebook-convert, ebook-meta, calibredb) batch-convert between EPUB, MOBI, AZW3, PDF, DOCX and more and manage library metadata. The install command is Linux-only; on macOS and Windows use the installer.

From Firecrawl: converts Word, PowerPoint, Excel, PDF, EPUB, RTF and more into clean Markdown locally in milliseconds, keeping headings, tables, footnotes and formulas so agents can read attachments. Needs Node.js; optional Firecrawl cloud OCR for scans uploads the whole file.

AI2's tool for converting PDFs and scans to Markdown with a vision LLM, handling equations, tables, handwriting and multi-column layouts, suited to bulk digitizing papers and archives. Local runs need an NVIDIA GPU with 12GB+ VRAM; otherwise use a paid OpenAI-compatible remote endpoint.

Write your resume in YAML and render a cleanly typeset PDF from the command line: multiple themes, fine control of margins, colors and fonts, strict field validation and multi-language support. A companion agent skill is available. Needs Python 3.12+.

PDF translation CLI for research papers that preserves formulas and layout as much as possible, producing bilingual side-by-side or translation-only PDFs. Needs an OpenAI-compatible API (local Ollama works too); currently focused on English to Chinese.

PDF command line written in pure Go with almost no external dependencies: dozens of subcommands to merge, split, crop, rotate, watermark, encrypt and decrypt, extract images and fonts, and work with forms.

Open-source alternative to NotebookLM's podcast feature: turns web pages, PDFs, images, YouTube videos or text into two-host conversational audio, useful for lecture notes or articles. Uses Gemini and OpenAI API keys by default, or local models plus free Edge TTS.

Self-contained modern TeX/LaTeX engine based on XeTeX and TeX Live that downloads and caches support files on first build, compiling .tex to PDF in one command without installing a full TeX distribution.

Visually compares two PDFs page by page: reports differences via exit code, writes a PDF with differences highlighted, or opens a GUI for side-by-side review. Useful for checking contract or generated-document revisions. No longer actively developed.

Converts PDFs to editable Word files, keeping paragraphs, tables, images and layout as closely as possible, and can extract tables alone, handy when a contract or exam only exists as PDF. Needs Python; digital PDFs only, OCR scans first. No longer actively maintained by Artifex.