PDF to Text & Tables Extractor: Markdown + OCR

Give this tool links to PDF files, or upload a PDF, and get clean, structured content for each document: the full text, a Markdown version with headings, lists and tables, every table as rows of cells and as CSV, and the document's metadata. Scanned pages without a text layer are read automatically with OCR (Tesseract) in 28 languages. $0.40 per 1,000 pages; OCR pages $8 per 1,000.

What can this PDF extractor do?

• PDF to text: full plain text of every page.
• PDF to Markdown: headings (from font sizes), bullet and numbered lists, paragraphs and Markdown tables, ready for LLMs and RAG.
• PDF tables to CSV: each table as rows of cells plus a CSV string, with ruled-line or text-alignment detection.
• OCR scanned PDFs automatically (only pages without text, or every page if you choose) in English, German, French, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Arabic and 21 more languages.
• Per-page output for citations by page number.
• Metadata: title, author, subject, keywords, creator, producer, dates, page count, language and word count.
• Process in bulk from many links or an uploaded file, with page ranges, page caps and size and time limits.

What data do you get?

Field	Description
url, finalUrl, fileName	The document
title, author, createdAt, modifiedAt, metadata	Document metadata
totalPages, pagesProcessed, processedPageNumbers, complete, stoppedEarly	What was processed
ocrUsed, ocrPages	Whether OCR was needed and on how many pages
language, wordCount, characterCount, fileSizeBytes	Content stats
text, markdown	Full text and Markdown
tables, tableCount	Tables as {page, rows, rowCount, columnCount, csv}
pages	Optional per-page text and Markdown
warnings, processingSecs	Notes and timing

Who uses it?

• AI and RAG builders turning PDFs into Markdown or text before chunking and embedding.
• Analysts and researchers pulling tables from statistics releases, annual reports and filings into spreadsheets.
• Operations and legal teams searching or archiving contracts, forms, invoices and scanned letters.
• Developers who want "PDF in, JSON out" without running their own OCR servers.

How to use it

1. Click Try for free (or Start).
2. Paste PDF URLs, or upload a PDF.
3. Optionally set a Page range (1-5, 8, 10-), OCR languages and table detection.
4. Run it and download JSON for Markdown and tables, or open the Documents view.
5. Call it from the API, Make, Zapier or n8n to process new PDFs as they arrive.

Input example

{
  "startUrls": [
    {
      "url": "https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/fw9.pdf"
    }
  ],
  "pageRange": "1-6",
  "ocrMode": "auto",
  "ocrLanguages": [
    "eng"
  ],
  "extractTables": true,
  "includeMarkdown": true
}

Output example

{
  "url": "https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/fw9.pdf",
  "finalUrl": null,
  "fileName": "fw9.pdf",
  "title": "Form W-9 (Rev. March 2024)",
  "author": "SE:W:CAR:MP",
  "createdAt": "2024-03-06T08:18:13-05:00",
  "modifiedAt": "2024-03-06T08:18:13-05:00",
  "totalPages": 6,
  "pagesProcessed": 6,
  "processedPageNumbers": [
    1,
    2,
    3
  ],
  "ocrUsed": false,
  "ocrPages": 0,
  "language": "en",
  "wordCount": 6511,
  "characterCount": 37876,
  "fileSizeBytes": 140815,
  "tableCount": 1,
  "text": "Form W-9\n\n(Rev. March 2024)\nDepartment of the Treasury\nInternal Revenue Service\nBefore you begin. For guidance related to the purpose of Form W-9, see Purpose of Form, below.\n\nRequest for Taxpayer\nIdentification Number a...",
  "markdown": "Form  W-9\n\n(Rev. March 2024) Department of the Treasury Internal Revenue Service Before you begin. For guidance related to the purpose of Form W-9, see Purpose of Form, below.\n\n# Request for Taxpayer Identification Numbe...",
  "tables": [
    {
      "page": 3,
      "rows": [
        [
          "IF the entity/individual on line 1 is a(n) . . .",
          "THEN check the box for . . ."
        ],
        [
          "• Corporation",
          "Corporation."
        ],
        [
          "• Individual or • Sole proprietorship",
          "Individual/sole proprietor."
        ]
      ],
      "rowCount": 6,
      "columnCount": 2,
      "csv": "IF the entity/individual on line 1 is a(n) . . .,THEN check the box for . . .\r\n• Corporation,Corporation.\r\n• Individual or • Sole proprietorship,Individual/sole proprietor.\r\n• LLC classified as a partnership for U.S. fed..."
    }
  ],
  "metadata": {
    "title": "Form W-9 (Rev. March 2024)",
    "author": "SE:W:CAR:MP",
    "subject": "Request for Taxpayer Identification Number and Certification",
    "keywords": "Fillable",
    "creator": "Designer 6.5",
    "producer": "Designer 6.5",
    "createdAt": "2024-03-06T08:18:13-05:00",
    "modifiedAt": "2024-03-06T08:18:13-05:00"
  },
  "complete": true,
  "stoppedEarly": null,
  "warnings": null,
  "processingSecs": 1.7
}

How much does it cost?

You pay per page processed, so short documents cost very little:

Event	Price	Per 1,000
Page with a text layer	$0.0004	$0.40
Scanned page read with OCR	$0.008	$8
Run start (per GB of memory)	$0.001

Examples: a 6-page form costs about $0.0034; a 40-page report about $0.017; 1,000 text pages $0.40; a 100-page scanned archive about $0.80. Failed downloads, non-PDF files, password-protected PDFs and pages outside your range are not charged.

Volume discounts on higher Apify plans. The prices above are for the Apify Free plan. On paid plans the per-result price drops automatically: about 15% lower on Bronze, 25% lower on Silver and 38% lower on Gold and above.

Use it via API, Make, Zapier, n8n or an AI agent

Apify API. Start a run and get the results back in one HTTP request (replace YOUR_API_TOKEN with the token from Apify Console > Settings > Integrations):

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/plotpointtech~pdf-text-markdown-tables-extractor/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=YOUR_API_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"startUrls": [{"url": "https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/fw9.pdf"}], "pageRange": "1-6", "ocrMode": "auto", "ocrLanguages": ["eng"], "extractTables": true, "includeMarkdown": true}'

For longer jobs, start the run asynchronously and read the dataset when it finishes. Official apify-client libraries exist for Python and JavaScript; the API tab on this page has ready-made code.

No-code automation. Connect the tool to Make, Zapier, n8n, Google Sheets, Slack, Airtable or any webhook with Apify integrations, and use Schedules in Apify Console to run it hourly, daily or weekly.

AI agents (MCP). Give Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, VS Code or any MCP-compatible agent direct access to this tool through the hosted Apify MCP server. Add this server URL to your client:

https://mcp.apify.com?tools=plotpointtech/pdf-text-markdown-tables-extractor

The agent can then call the tool with the same input fields shown above and read the results.

FAQ

Is it legal to extract text from PDFs? Yes, for documents you are allowed to access and use. The tool downloads exactly the URLs you provide (or your upload) and does not log in anywhere. Respect copyright and confidentiality of the documents you process.

Does it work on scanned PDFs? Yes. Pages without a text layer are OCR'd automatically. Quality depends on the scan; low-resolution or skewed scans give weaker results, and tables on scanned pages are returned as paragraphs.

How fast is it? Text pages typically take well under a second each. OCR takes roughly 5 to 25 seconds per page; for large scanned archives, run with 4 GB of memory.

Are password-protected PDFs supported? PDFs with an opening password are not. PDFs that only restrict printing or copying usually work.

Is the Markdown good enough for RAG? It works well for reports, papers and statistics releases. Heavily designed brochures may lose some structure; multi-column layouts are read column by column.

Related tools from Plot Point Technologies

• Image OCR - Image to Text in Bulk, Tesseract & AI Vision: text from images in bulk, with AI mode for receipts and handwriting.
• Website to Markdown Crawler for AI, LLM & RAG - $1/1K: any website as clean Markdown for LLMs and RAG.
• AI Web Scraper - Extract Any Website to JSON in Plain English: describe the fields you want and get JSON from any web page.

Plot Point Technologies is not affiliated with Adobe, the Tesseract project, or the publishers of any PDF you process.

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If this tool saved you time, we would be grateful for a short review on this page; it helps other people find it. If something did not work as expected, please open an issue on the Issues tab and we will look into it quickly.