You want the words on a page, not the entire page. Strip a URL down to its main-content text and nothing else — no menus, no cookie bars, no "subscribe to our newsletter" pop-ups, no related-articles widgets. Useful for piping web content into a script, a search index, or anywhere that wants flat UTF-8 strings.
How "URL to Text" actually works here
Every URL goes through a headless browser so JavaScript-rendered content actually loads, then through a Mozilla-Readability-style extraction pass that identifies the main content area, then through a final flattening step that strips Markdown markers (no #, no *, no list bullets — just the words). The result is plain text — copy-paste-ready, search-indexable, ready for any tool that wants UTF-8 string input.
Single page, full crawls, both
Paste one URL for a single-page extraction. Paste a sitemap URL or root domain for a multi-page crawl that returns one text file per page (zipped). Same content extraction either way; the crawl mode just batches it across the site and respects robots.txt by default.
Frequently asked questions
What's the difference between URL to Text and URL to Markdown?
URL to Text gives you flat UTF-8 — no structural markers, no headings, no list bullets. URL to Markdown preserves the page's heading hierarchy, lists, tables, and code blocks. Use Text for plain-text scripts, search indexing, or NLP pipelines that don't care about structure; use Markdown when structure matters (AI input, wikis, docs sites).
Does this handle JavaScript-heavy single-page apps?
Yes — pages render in a headless browser before extraction, so SPAs (React, Vue, Svelte sites) load their actual content first. A naive curl URL would return the empty shell; we wait for hydration and read the rendered DOM.
Are nav menus, cookie banners, and ads removed?
Yes — readability extraction detects the main content area and discards site furniture (nav, side rails, footer, cookie consent, newsletter pop-ups, related-posts widgets, comment threads). What's left is the article body. If you want the full page including chrome (rare), use the API with the main_content_only=false flag.
Can I extract text from a list of URLs in batch?
Yes — POST a JSON array of URLs to the API and get a ZIP of one text file per URL back. Typical throughput is 1-3 URLs/second per worker; for big batches (1000+ URLs) the API runs them on a worker pool and emails you when the ZIP is ready.
Does it respect robots.txt and rate limits?
Single-page conversion ignores robots.txt (you're fetching one page you already know about). Multi-page crawls respect robots.txt by default and rate-limit at one request per second per host out of the box. Both behaviours are configurable on the API; default to polite.
Your AI doesn't read PDFs directly. It first has to extract the text, decode the layout, ignore the metadata — before it can even start answering. A Markdown file removes all of those steps. Your AI reads it instantly. So you get faster responses, more accurate results, and zero information lost along the way.
Size-wise, it's 100 to 500 times lighter for the same content. A 15 MB PDF becomes a 30 KB .md file. So your AI knowledge base can hold hundreds of documents instead of a handful.
MDisBetter brings 19 free tools together for that — documents, videos, audio, web pages and prompts.
How does it work?
Drop a PDF, a video, an audio file or a URL. MDisBetter extracts the content and gives you a clean Markdown file. So you can send it to your AI, add it to your project files, or store it in your knowledge base — without losing anything.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I convert a PDF to Markdown for free?
Upload your PDF to MDisBetter, click Convert, and get structured Markdown in seconds. No signup, no installation — it works directly in your browser. The free plan includes 50 credits per month.
Why is Markdown better than PDF for AI?
Markdown reduces token usage by up to 95% compared to PDF. AI models like ChatGPT and Claude process Markdown far more efficiently because it contains only content structure — no fonts, no layout data, no binary overhead.
What file types can MDisBetter convert?
MDisBetter converts PDF, Word (.docx), plain text, YouTube videos (transcript), audio files (MP3, WAV, M4A, OGG, FLAC, WEBM), and any web page URL to clean Markdown.
Is MDisBetter free?
Yes, free to start. The free plan includes 50 credits per month. All processing happens securely — your files are never stored.
Can I extract a YouTube transcript as Markdown?
Yes. Paste the YouTube video URL, click Convert, and get the full transcript structured as Markdown with headings and timestamps. Perfect for feeding video content to AI tools.
PDF → Markdown
Faithful and structured conversion of your documents
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
Questions
Yes! You get 50 credits every month to use any tool. Basic tools like MD Cleaner or Token Counter cost just 0.5 credit per use. When you run out, credits reset the next month or you can upgrade for more.
Wait for your monthly reset or upgrade to a higher plan. Credits renew on your billing date each month.
Yes, cancel anytime with one click. No questions asked. You keep access until the end of your billing period.
Pro gives you 30,000 credits for $29 — that's 30x more credits than Starter for just 3x the price. Every credit costs less, so you get far more value per dollar.