PDF to Markdown & Text Extractor, Tables Kept

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PDF to Markdown at a glance

• Input: Direct links to PDF files, including https://.
• Output: one row per PDF with 5 fields, including title, wordCount, markdown.
• Price: $5 per 1,000 PDFs, charged only for results.
• You need: nothing else. No cookies, no logins, no proxies and no API keys.
• Export: JSON, CSV, Excel or XML, or straight into your own tools with the Apify API and MCP.

What is PDF to Markdown?

Converts PDF files from their URLs into clean markdown built for language models and search. Headings stay headings and tables come back as markdown tables with their rows and columns aligned, rather than the flat text most converters produce. Each result carries the document title, read from its top heading, and a word count. Image-only scans have no text layer and are skipped and not charged, as are URLs that are not PDFs. Built for RAG pipelines, research and document monitoring.

• Real structure. Headings stay headings and tables come back as markdown tables, not a wall of text.
• A title. The document's title, read from its top heading.
• Straight from a URL. No downloading or uploading: give it links to PDFs and get markdown back.
• Honest about scans. An image-only scan has no text to read, so it is skipped and not charged rather than returned empty.

What data can I extract with PDF to Markdown?

Every result is one row per PDF, with these fields:

Field	What it holds
url	The PDF URL you asked for
finalUrl	Where the URL ended up after redirects
title	The document's title, taken from its top heading
wordCount	Words in the markdown
markdown	The whole document as markdown, with headings and tables kept

The table view in Apify shows URL, Title, Words, Markdown. The full record is in the JSON, CSV, Excel and XML exports, and over the API.

How to use PDF to Markdown

1. Open PDF to Markdown in the Apify Console. A free Apify account is enough to try it.
2. Paste your URLs, one per line, or upload a list.
3. Click Start. Each URL is processed on its own, so one bad entry never loses the batch.
4. Download the results as JSON, CSV or Excel, or send them to your own tools with an integration.

Input

One field: URLs. Direct links to PDF files, including https://.

Every line is checked before the run starts. Each must be a web address like https://stripe.com/pricing; a run with any other line is refused with that line named, so a typo never costs you anything.

{
  "urls": [
    "https://arxiv.org/pdf/1706.03762"
  ]
}

Output

A PDF we cannot resolve is skipped rather than returned empty, and you are not charged for it. The run log names every one that was skipped, so a short result is never a mystery.

{
  "url": "https://arxiv.org/pdf/1706.03762",
  "title": "Attention Is All You Need",
  "wordCount": 5949,
  "markdown": "## Attention Is All You Need\n\n##### Ashish Vaswani\n\n..."
}

How much does PDF to Markdown cost?

PDF to Markdown costs $5 per 1,000 PDFs returned, which is $0.005 each, with no separate compute charge. 10,000 PDFs cost $50.

• You pay only for results. A PDF that cannot be resolved is skipped and free.
• Try it on the free plan. On Apify's free plan you get 50 PDFs from this Actor in total, not per month, to try it out. After that a run stops and asks you to move to a paid Apify plan. Paid plans have no limit. On a paid plan, $5 covers about 1,000 PDFs.
• Volume discounts. Scale plans pay 5% less per result and Business plans 10% less.
• Cap any run. Set a maximum cost per run in the run options and the Actor stops cleanly when it is reached.

Common use cases

• RAG and knowledge bases. Load research papers, reports and manuals into a vector store with their structure intact.
• Research. Turn a reading list of papers into text an AI assistant can work through.
• Document monitoring. Convert regulatory filings, price lists or spec sheets each time they are republished.
• Data extraction. Get the tables out of reports and into a spreadsheet or model.

Integrate PDF to Markdown with other apps

PDF to Markdown works with the integrations on the Apify platform, including Make, Zapier, n8n, Google Sheets, Slack, Airbyte, LangChain, LlamaIndex, Pinecone. Results can also go anywhere with a webhook when a run finishes.

To keep a list current, save your input as a task and put it on a schedule.

PDF to Markdown API

Run PDF to Markdown from your own code with the Apify API clients.

JavaScript

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: 'YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN' });
const run = await client.actor('hydrafetch/pdf-to-markdown').call({ urls: ["https://arxiv.org/pdf/1706.03762"] });
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
console.log(items);

Python

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN")
run = client.actor("hydrafetch/pdf-to-markdown").call(run_input={"urls": ["https://arxiv.org/pdf/1706.03762"]})
for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(item)

AI agents can call it too. Connect Claude, Cursor or any MCP client to the Apify MCP server and add hydrafetch/pdf-to-markdown as a tool.

FAQ

Does it keep tables?

Yes. Tables are read from the layout and returned as markdown tables, so rows and columns stay aligned.

What about scanned PDFs?

A scan is a picture with no text layer, and this Actor does not run OCR. It is skipped and you are not charged for it.

What if a URL is not a PDF?

It is skipped and not charged. For web pages, use Website to Markdown instead.

Is there a free trial?

Yes. On Apify's free plan you get 50 PDFs from this Actor in total to try it, charged to your free Apify credit. After that, runs stop and ask you to move to a paid Apify plan, which has no limit.

Do I need cookies, a login or proxies?

No. PDF to Markdown works without cookies, accounts, proxies or API keys. Paste your URLs and run it; everything else is handled for you.

Is it legal to use PDF to Markdown?

PDF to Markdown collects only publicly available document content from PDF files. As with any data collection, you are responsible for how you use the results: follow the terms of the websites you work with and data protection laws such as GDPR wherever personal data is involved. If you are unsure about your use case, check with a lawyer.

Does PDF to Markdown have an API?

Yes. Every run is available through the Apify API, with the JavaScript and Python examples above, and through the Apify MCP server for AI agents.

Other Actors by Hydrafetch

• Company Enrichment API: give it domains and get a full company record for each: name, legal name, tagline, description, logo, brand colors, fonts, industry with NAICS code, email and social profiles. Input: domains like stripe.com. One row per company; domains that return nothing are not charged.
• Bulk Company Logo Finder: give it domains and get a direct image URL for each company's logo, with its format, width, height, dominant color and whether it is an icon or a wordmark. Input: domains like stripe.com. One row per company; domains with no logo found are not charged.
• Website Color Palette Extractor: give it domains and get each site's design as tokens: colors by role, fonts, type scale, radius, shadows and spacing, plus a paste-ready CSS stylesheet and Tailwind CSS v4 theme to restyle an app like it. Input: domains like linear.app. One row per site; failures are not charged.
• AI SEO & GEO Audit: give it page URLs and find out whether LLMs and AI agents can read them: a score out of 100, every check passed, warned or failed, the specific fixes, and a sample of the markdown an agent would see. Input: full URLs. One row per URL; pages we cannot read are not charged.
• Website to Markdown: give it URLs and get each page as clean markdown for LLMs, RAG and AI agents, with navigation, cookie banners and ads removed and JavaScript pages rendered. Input: full URLs. Each row has the markdown, title, language and word count; pages that return nothing are not charged.
• Article Extractor: give it article or blog post URLs and get the full text with its title, author, publish date, site name, language, lead image and word count. Input: full URLs. One row per article; pages with no article to extract are not charged.
• Company Social Links Finder: give it company domains or names and get the social profiles each company links from its own website: LinkedIn, X, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, GitHub and Crunchbase, with handles. Input: domains like stripe.com or names like "Acme Corp, Germany". Companies with none are not charged.
• LinkedIn Company Scraper: give it LinkedIn company page URLs or company domains and get the public profile: industry, company size, employees on LinkedIn, followers, headquarters address, founded year, specialties and logo. No login needed. One row per company; companies we cannot find are not charged.
• Tech Stack Detector: give it domains and get the technology each site runs: CMS, ecommerce platform, analytics, tag managers, JavaScript frameworks, hosting, web server, payments, marketing automation and live chat. Input: domains like stripe.com. One row per site; sites we cannot read are not charged.
• Website Crawler to Markdown: give it a start URL and get the site or docs section crawled into clean markdown, one row per page with its title, language, page type, depth and word count. Input: full URLs, plus how many pages to read per site. Charged per page returned; pages that return nothing are free.
• Company Jobs Scraper: give it company domains and get every open job from the hiring platform each company uses: title, team, location, remote status, employment type, pay when listed, posting date, apply link and full description. Input: domains like stripe.com. Companies with no open roles found are not charged.
• YouTube Transcript Scraper: give it YouTube links or video ids and get each video's full transcript, as plain text and as timestamped segments, with the title, channel and word count. Input: youtube.com or youtu.be links, or 11 character ids. One row per video; videos without a transcript are not charged.
• Google Ads Library Scraper: give it company domains and get the Google ads each company runs, from the public Ads Transparency Center: advertiser, format, image, preview link and first and last shown dates. Input: domains like stripe.com, plus how many ads per domain. One row per ad; domains with no ads are not charged.
• LinkedIn Ad Library Scraper: give it company names, domains or LinkedIn pages and get the ads each runs on LinkedIn: full copy, headline, call to action, image or video, run dates, impressions by country and targeting. One row per ad; companies with no ads, or none we can match, are not charged.
• Facebook Ads Library Scraper: give it brand names, domains, Facebook pages or Ad Library links and get the ads each runs on Facebook and Instagram: copy, images, videos, carousel cards, platforms, start and end dates and active status. One row per ad; brands with no ads, or none we can match, are not charged.
• Website Contact Details Scraper: give it company domains or names and get the emails, phone numbers, social profiles and postal address each company publishes on its own website. Input: domains like stripe.com, or names like "Acme Corp, Germany". One row per company; companies with no contact details are not charged.
• App Store and Google Play Scraper: give it App Store or Google Play links, Apple app ids or package names and get app details plus its newest reviews: rating, rating count, installs, version, then each review's text, stars, date and developer reply. One row per review; apps not found or with no reviews are not charged.
• Trustpilot Reviews Scraper: give it company domains and get each company's Trustpilot TrustScore, star breakdown and total reviews, plus its newest reviews with rating, text, dates and the company's reply, without reviewer names. Input: domains like stripe.com. One row per review; companies not on Trustpilot are not charged.
• Shopify Store Products Scraper: give it Shopify store domains and get every product: title, price range, currency, variants with SKUs and stock, options, images, vendor, type, tags and description, including stores that hide their product feed. One row per product; stores with no readable products are not charged.
• LinkedIn Jobs Scraper: search LinkedIn jobs with terms like "data engineer" or a jobs search link, filtered by location, date posted, workplace, job type and experience, and get each posting with company, pay, applicants, seniority and full description. No login needed. Searches with no jobs are not charged.
• Google Maps Scraper with Emails: search Google Maps with a phrase like "dentists in Berlin" or a Maps link and get every place: name, address, phone, website, rating, reviews and coordinates, up to 120 per search. Turn on contacts to add emails and socials from each place's own website, charged only when found.
• Amazon Product Scraper: search Amazon.com with terms like "wireless earbuds", or give it product links or ASINs, and get each product's US price, rating, review count, sales in the past month and seller, with the full product page on request. One row per product; searches with no products are not charged.
• News Scraper with Full Article Text: search the news for any topic, like "stripe funding", and get recent articles with their full text as clean markdown, the real publisher link, source, author and publish date. Input: search queries, plus how many articles and how far back. Queries with no readable articles are not charged.
• Company Ads Across Google, LinkedIn and Meta: give it company domains and get the ads each company runs on Google, LinkedIn and Facebook and Instagram in one dataset with the same columns: platform, headline, copy, call to action, image or video, link and dates. One row per ad; domains with no ads anywhere are not charged.
• Company Website Finder: give it company names, optionally with the country after a comma, and get each company's official website and domain, checked against the company's own homepage so directories never slip through, with a confidence level. One row per company; names we cannot confirm are not charged.
• Google Trends Scraper: give it search terms and get Google Trends data: interest over time with a 0 to 100 value per point, interest by country or region, and top and rising related queries. Input: one search per line, up to 5 comma-separated terms to compare. Searches with no data are not charged.
• Reddit Scraper: give it a subreddit like r/startups, a user, a post link or words to search Reddit, and get posts with title, author, subreddit, score, comment count, date, flair, link and full text. Input: one per line, with sort, time window and up to 500 posts each. Inputs with no posts are not charged.
• Booking.com Reviews Scraper: give it Booking.com hotel links and get the newest guest reviews: score, date, title, what guests liked and disliked, language, country, room type, nights and check-in date, with the hotel name and overall score on every row. One row per review; hotels with no reviews are not charged.
• Website Screenshot API: give it URLs and get a screenshot of each page as a hosted PNG link, of the first screen or the full page, rendered in a real browser, with its width and height. Input: full URLs. One row per screenshot; pages that fail to load are not charged.

Terms of use

Your results are yours. We claim no rights in the inputs you submit or the data you get back. Full terms: hydrafetch.com/terms

Your feedback

Something not working, or a field you need? Open an issue on the Issues tab with the input you used, and we read every one.

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