markgo

Convert documents to Markdown. Fast, single binary, minimal dependencies.

A Go rewrite of Microsoft's MarkItDown.

Supported Formats

Format	Extensions	Notes
PDF	.pdf	Layout preserved
Excel	.xlsx, .xlsm	All sheets as tables
Word	.docx	Headings, lists, tables, formatting
HTML	.html, .htm	Links, images, code blocks, tables

Installation

Prerequisites

PDF support requires pdftotext from poppler-utils:

# Debian/Ubuntu
sudo apt install poppler-utils

# macOS
brew install poppler

# Fedora
sudo dnf install poppler-utils

# Arch
sudo pacman -S poppler

Build from Source

git clone https://github.com/user/markgo
cd markgo
go build -o markgo ./cmd/markgo

# Optional: install to PATH
sudo mv markgo /usr/local/bin/

Usage

Basic

# Convert a file (output to stdout)
markgo document.pdf

# Save to file
markgo document.pdf -o document.md

# Or use redirection
markgo document.pdf > document.md

From stdin

# Pipe content (use -x to specify format)
cat document.xlsx | markgo -x .xlsx

# Download and convert
curl -s https://example.com | markgo -x .html

Options

-o, --output     Output file (default: stdout)
-x, --extension  File extension hint (.pdf, .xlsx, .docx, .html)
-m, --mime-type  MIME type hint
-v, --version    Show version

Examples

PDF Invoice

$ markgo invoice.pdf

Acme Corp                                              Invoice #12345
123 Main Street                                        Date: 2025-01-15

Description                    Qty        Price           Total
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Consulting Services            10         $150.00         $1,500.00
Development                    20         $200.00         $4,000.00

                                          Subtotal:       $5,500.00
                                          Tax (10%):        $550.00
                                          Total:          $6,050.00

Excel Spreadsheet

$ markgo data.xlsx

## Sheet1

| Name | Department | Salary |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Alice | Engineering | $95,000 |
| Bob | Marketing | $75,000 |
| Carol | Engineering | $105,000 |

Word Document

$ markgo report.docx

# Quarterly Report

## Executive Summary

This quarter showed **strong growth** in all departments...

## Key Metrics

- Revenue: $2.5M
- Customers: 1,250
- Satisfaction: 94%

HTML Webpage

$ curl -s https://example.com | markgo -x .html

# Example Domain

This domain is for use in illustrative examples in documents.

[More information...](https://www.iana.org/domains/example)

Go API

package main

import (
    "fmt"
    "log"

    "github.com/markgo/pkg/converter"
)

func main() {
    md := converter.New()

    // From file
    result, err := md.ConvertFile("document.pdf")
    if err != nil {
        log.Fatal(err)
    }
    fmt.Println(result.Markdown)

    // From reader
    file, _ := os.Open("data.xlsx")
    defer file.Close()
    
    result, err = md.ConvertReader(file, streaminfo.StreamInfo{
        Extension: ".xlsx",
    })
    if err != nil {
        log.Fatal(err)
    }
    fmt.Println(result.Markdown)
}

Comparison with MarkItDown (Python)

	markgo	MarkItDown
Language	Go	Python
Binary	Single 9MB binary	Requires Python + deps
PDF	pdftotext (fast)	pdfminer (slower)
Startup	Instant	~500ms
Dependencies	1 external (pdftotext)	Many Python packages

Roadmap

• CSV / JSON / XML
• Plain text (passthrough)
• PowerPoint (.pptx)
• Images (EXIF metadata)
• ZIP archives (extract and convert)
• URL fetching (built-in)

License

MIT

Credits

Inspired by MarkItDown by Microsoft.