Convert Documents to Markdown

Claude works best with clean text.

When source material lives in PDFs, Word documents, spreadsheets, or slide decks, convert it to markdown before asking Claude to analyze it.

Why markdown helps

• Less token waste from formatting noise.
• Easier quoting and referencing.
• Better search inside the session.
• More predictable summaries and extraction.

Example tool

markitdown is one option for converting common document formats into markdown.

markitdown input.pdf > input.md

Then reference the markdown file in Claude Code:

Read @input.md and extract the requirements, open questions, and implementation constraints.

Prompt pattern

Read this converted markdown carefully.
Summarize only decisions, requirements, dates, owners, and unresolved questions.
Ignore formatting artifacts from the original file.