Document to Markdown

Convert any document or image to clean markdown with a single API call. Send one file and receive the markdown output — no schema, no extraction, just clean text ready for LLM pipelines or downstream processing.

Key Features

• Multi-Format Support — Convert PDF, DOCX, XLSX, images, HTML, Markdown, CSV, JSON, and plain text.
• Built-In OCR — Scanned PDFs and image files are processed through OCR automatically. No separate step required.
• Image Descriptions — For image files, the response includes a plain-language description of the visual content alongside the extracted markdown.
• LLM-Grade Output — The markdown format is the same used internally by the Document Extraction API. Tables, structure, and layout are preserved for reliable LLM consumption.

Overview

The Document to Markdown API converts a document to clean markdown. You send one file (base64 or URL) and receive a JSON object with the result.

Endpoint: POST /document-to-markdown/v1/convert

Supported formats: PDF, DOCX, XLSX/XLS, CSV, TXT, Markdown, JSON, HTML, PNG, JPEG, GIF, WebP, SVG

Limits:

• Max file size: 50 MB

How It Works

Every conversion runs the same ingestion pipeline used by Document Extraction:

1. Parse — the file format is detected and validated.
2. Ingest — the file is converted to markdown using the appropriate processor:
   • PDF — pages are rendered to images and run through OCR.
   • Images — OCR extracts text and a vision model generates a description of the visual content.
   • Office documents — DOCX, XLSX, and CSV content is extracted and normalized to markdown.
   • Text formats — HTML, Markdown, JSON, CSV, and plain text are cleaned and returned as-is.
3. Return — the result is returned as a JSON object.

There is no LLM extraction step. The API stops after ingestion.

Request Format

curl -X POST \
  https://api.iterationlayer.com/document-to-markdown/v1/convert \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "file": {
      "type": "base64",
      "name": "invoice.pdf",
      "base64": "<base64-encoded-file>"
    }
  }'

{
  "success": true,
  "data": {
    "name": "invoice.pdf",
    "mime_type": "application/pdf",
    "markdown": "# Invoice\n\n**Invoice Number:** INV-2024-0042\n\n**Date:** 2024-03-15\n\n| Description | Qty | Unit Price | Total |\n|---|---|---|---|\n| Consulting | 10h | $100.00 | $1,000.00 |\n| Support | 5h | $80.00 | $400.00 |\n\n**Total: $1,400.00**"
  }
}

import { IterationLayer } from "iterationlayer";
const client = new IterationLayer({
  apiKey: "YOUR_API_KEY",
});

const result = await client.convertToMarkdown({
  file: {
    type: "base64",
    name: "invoice.pdf",
    base64: "<base64-encoded-file>",
  },
});

{
  "success": true,
  "data": {
    "name": "invoice.pdf",
    "mime_type": "application/pdf",
    "markdown": "# Invoice\n\n**Invoice Number:** INV-2024-0042\n\n**Date:** 2024-03-15\n\n| Description | Qty | Unit Price | Total |\n|---|---|---|---|\n| Consulting | 10h | $100.00 | $1,000.00 |\n| Support | 5h | $80.00 | $400.00 |\n\n**Total: $1,400.00**"
  }
}

from iterationlayer import IterationLayer
client = IterationLayer(api_key="YOUR_API_KEY")

result = client.convert_to_markdown(
    file={
        "type": "base64",
        "name": "invoice.pdf",
        "base64": "<base64-encoded-file>",
    }
)

{
  "success": true,
  "data": {
    "name": "invoice.pdf",
    "mime_type": "application/pdf",
    "markdown": "# Invoice\n\n**Invoice Number:** INV-2024-0042\n\n**Date:** 2024-03-15\n\n| Description | Qty | Unit Price | Total |\n|---|---|---|---|\n| Consulting | 10h | $100.00 | $1,000.00 |\n| Support | 5h | $80.00 | $400.00 |\n\n**Total: $1,400.00**"
  }
}

import il "github.com/iterationlayer/sdk-go"
client := il.NewClient("YOUR_API_KEY")

result, err := client.ConvertToMarkdown(il.ConvertRequest{
    File: il.NewFileFromBase64(
        "invoice.pdf",
        "<base64-encoded-file>",
    ),
})

{
  "success": true,
  "data": {
    "name": "invoice.pdf",
    "mime_type": "application/pdf",
    "markdown": "# Invoice\n\n**Invoice Number:** INV-2024-0042\n\n**Date:** 2024-03-15\n\n| Description | Qty | Unit Price | Total |\n|---|---|---|---|\n| Consulting | 10h | $100.00 | $1,000.00 |\n| Support | 5h | $80.00 | $400.00 |\n\n**Total: $1,400.00**"
  }
}

Request Parameters

FileInput

The file is either a base64-encoded binary or a URL reference.

Response Format

The response is a JSON object with the conversion result.

Image Files

For image files, the response includes both markdown (OCR output) and description (vision model output). The description field describes what the image depicts — suitable for use as alt text, for downstream search indexing, or as context in LLM prompts.

{
  "name": "product-photo.png",
  "mime_type": "image/png",
  "markdown": "Sale — 30% off all items",
  "description": "A product photograph of a white ceramic mug on a wooden table. The mug has a minimalist design with no text or logo. Natural lighting from the left."
}

Recipes

For complete, runnable examples see the Recipes page.

• Convert Invoice to Markdown — Convert a PDF invoice to structured markdown.
• Convert Contract to Markdown — Extract contract text and clauses as clean markdown.
• Convert Resume to Markdown — Convert a resume PDF to structured markdown for downstream processing.

Error Responses