How do I convert a PDF to Markdown for free?

Upload your PDF to mdisbetter.com, click Convert, and get clean structured Markdown in seconds. No signup, no installation — it works directly in your browser.

Why is Markdown better than PDF for AI?

Markdown reduces token usage by up to 95% compared to PDF when feeding documents to AI models like ChatGPT or Claude. PDF contains layout metadata, fonts, and binary data that waste tokens. Markdown preserves only the content structure that AI actually needs.

What file types can MDisBetter convert to Markdown?

MDisBetter converts PDF, Word (.docx), plain text, YouTube videos (transcript extraction), audio files (MP3, WAV, M4A, OGG, FLAC, WEBM), and any web page URL to clean Markdown.

Is MDisBetter free to use?

Yes, MDisBetter is completely free. You get 10 conversions per day with no signup required. All tools work directly in your browser.

How do I extract a YouTube transcript as Markdown?

Paste the YouTube video URL into the YouTube to Markdown tool on mdisbetter.com and click Convert. The tool extracts the transcript and structures it as clean, formatted Markdown with headings and timestamps.

Does it support DRM-protected EPUBs?

No. We detect Adobe ADEPT and other AES-based DRM via META-INF/encryption.xml and reject the file with a clear message before any conversion happens. EPUBs that only use IDPF font obfuscation (which is not DRM and does not encrypt text) are accepted normally.

Does it work for fiction?

Yes. Block quotes, italic emphasis, dialogue, and nested lists are preserved. Poetry and verse-specific formatting (CSS-driven line breaks) is best-effort — most readers convert it correctly because the underlying HTML uses ` ` or ` `.

How are footnotes handled?

EPUB footnotes that use `epub:type="noteref"` / `role="doc-noteref"` for the reference and `epub:type="footnote"` for the body are converted to CommonMark `[^id]` syntax with a matching `[^id]: ...` definition block. The output renders correctly in GitHub, Obsidian, Pandoc, and most Markdown viewers.

Can I split by chapter?

Yes. The "Output" select offers two modes: "Single .md" produces one file with `---` separators between chapters. "Split by chapter (.zip)" produces a ZIP containing one .md per chapter, an `index.md` with the TOC, and an `assets/` folder with the images (when image mode is set to "External assets/").

Three modes via the "Images" select. "Skip" replaces each image with a `[Image: alt text]` placeholder (default, smallest output). "Inline (data URI)" embeds each image as a base64 data URI in the Markdown — convenient single-file but expands the output (capped at ~12 MB raw image data per book). "External assets/" extracts images into the ZIP under `assets/` and is only available in split-ZIP mode.

Is there a table of contents?

Yes when the "Include table of contents" checkbox is on. We parse `nav.xhtml` (EPUB 3) or `toc.ncx` (EPUB 2) and emit a hierarchical Markdown TOC. In split mode, TOC entries link to the per-chapter .md files; in single mode they use GFM-style heading anchors.

How big can the EPUB be?

Up to your plan's max file size. The conversion runs entirely in your browser, so very large books use your machine's memory, not ours.

Can I convert multiple EPUBs at once?

Yes. Drop several .epub files and each is processed sequentially. The per-batch ceiling depends on your plan. "Download All as ZIP" packs every conversion into a single archive — for split-mode batches each book gets its own subdirectory with index.md + chapter .md files + assets/.

No. The .epub never leaves your browser. We only persist an anonymous usage row (file size, chapter count) for product analytics.

EPUB to Markdown Converter — Free Online

Ebooks are made of HTML. We turn them into Markdown.

EPUB is just zipped HTML, which means the content is already structured — you only need a careful converter that respects the spine order and inline formatting. Ours unpacks the archive, walks every chapter in reading order, and converts each one through Turndown with the GFM plugin, so tables stay as tables, lists keep their hierarchy, and inline <code> doesn't become a fenced block.

This is the cleanest path to feeding a long book into an LLM, building a personal study knowledge base, or migrating a self-published ebook into a Markdown-first publishing pipeline.

What is preserved

Chapter order taken from the OPF spine (the same order an EPUB reader follows)
Headings (H1 / H2 / H3) and section structure
Inline formatting — bold, italic, links, inline code
GFM tables with proper pipe escaping
Nested ordered and unordered lists
Block quotes
EPUB footnotes (epub:type="noteref") mapped to CommonMark [^id]
Dublin Core metadata exposed as an optional YAML frontmatter block

The result is a clean Markdown ebook that opens correctly in any Markdown editor and can be re-rendered to PDF, HTML, or another EPUB later.

Tool	Cost	Unit
Text to MD, EPUB to MD, MD to PDF, MD Cleaner, Merger, Chunker, Token Counter, Context Builder	Free	—
Word to MD	0.5 credit	per page
Excel to MD	0.5 credit	per conversion
Single URL Scrape	0.5 credit	per call
Site Crawl	1 credit	per page
Translate	1 credit	per 10 000 chars (min 1, free re-translation on cache hit)
Prompt Optimizer	1 credit	per call
System Prompt Generator	1 credit	per call
Audio to MD	2 credits	per minute
Video to MD	2 credits	per minute
YouTube to MD	2 credits	per minute
Image OCR	4 credits	per image (0 on cache hit)
PDF to MD	4 credits	per page
PPTX to MD	4 credits	per slide

EPUB to Markdown — Convert Ebooks to Clean MD

Ebooks are made of HTML. We turn them into Markdown.

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