to-markdown

@cognipeer/to-markdown · Utilities

stable

A versatile, TypeScript-first utility for converting PDF, DOCX, HTML, Excel, CSV, and more into clean Markdown — ready for RAG pipelines and LLM context windows.

Quickstart GitHub Full docs

License · MITTypeScript · 100%Audience · Anyone building a…Fits · RAG ingestion

RAG ingestionDocument normalisationTypeScript-firstBrowse recipes

Production install

$npm install @cognipeer/to-markdown

What's in the box

Anyone building a RAG pipeline or document workflow that needs to normalise heterogeneous file formats into a single, LLM-friendly representation. Each capability is opt-in — use the parts that fit, leave the rest.

Multi-format support

Converts PDF, DOCX, HTML, Excel, CSV, and other formats into structured Markdown with a single API.

Promise-based API

Simple async interface that returns Markdown strings with predictable structure for downstream parsing.

TypeScript first

Written in TypeScript with full type definitions and zero-config import in modern toolchains.

Customisable conversion

Options to control table handling, image extraction, heading depth, and chunking-friendly output.

RAG-ready output

Output shape is tuned for ingestion: clean headings, stable IDs, and minimal noise from source styling.

Modular & fast

Per-format adapters keep the bundle lean — only load the converters you actually need.

How it runs

A small, modular pipeline: detect the source format, run the right adapter, normalise the structure, and emit clean Markdown — ready to chunk and embed.

Step 1

Detect

Format sniff

Step 2

Adapter

PDF · DOCX · HTML …

Step 3

Normalise

Headings · tables

Step 4

Emit

Markdown string

Inputs

PDF · DOCX
HTML · plain text
Excel · CSV
Bring-your-own buffer

Options

imageMode
tableStrategy
headingDepth
chunkHint

Output

Clean Markdown
Stable headings
Per-doc metadata
Streaming-friendly

Quickstart

Install, configure, run. The example below is the smallest piece of code that does something useful in production.

import  { toMarkdown } from "@cognipeer/to-markdown";
 
const md = await toMarkdown({
  source: "./policies/handbook.pdf",
  headingDepth: 3,
  tableStrategy: "preserve",
});
 
console.log(md.text);  // clean Markdown
console.log(md.meta);  // title, headings, byte count

How it compares

Against the utilities options teams most often weigh — focused on operational concerns, not feature inventories.

Capability	to-markdown	pandoc	unstructured.io	turndown
PDF	● native	◐ partial	● native	○ missing
DOCX	● native	● native	● native	○ missing
HTML	● native	● native	● native	● native
Excel / CSV	● native	◐ partial	● native	○ missing
TypeScript	● native	○ missing	○ missing	● native
Open source	● native	● native	◐ partial	● native