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Best free tools to turn documents into AI-ready text

Convert PDFs, Word and slides into clean Markdown for ChatGPT and other AI.

  1. Convert Word, PDF, Excel and PowerPoint files into plain text
    ★ 194kstars
    markitdown by microsoft · Free alternative to Adobe Acrobat export
    Simplest: almost any file to Markdown
    Some setupCommand-line toolHealthy
  2. Turn complex PDFs into clean text, tables and formulas
    ★ 83.1kstars
    MinerU by opendatalab · Free alternative to Mistral OCR, Adobe Acrobat
    Best for complex PDFs with tables and formulas
    No codingDesktop appHealthy
  3. Convert PDFs and documents into text AI can use
    ★ 70.1kstars
    docling by docling-project · Free alternative to Adobe Acrobat
    IBM's accurate local converter
    Some setupCommand-line toolHealthy
  4. Turn PDFs and scans into clean text, even tricky layouts
    ★ 19.8kstars
    olmocr by allenai · Free alternative to Mistral OCR
    Great for scanned documents
    Some setupCommand-line tool▶ Try onlineFair

Ranked for people new to AI: ease of use first, then quality, upkeep and popularity. Last checked 4 Nov 2026.

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