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PDF Oxide

Conversión a Markdown

PDF Oxide convierte páginas PDF a Markdown limpio y legible. El pipeline extrae spans de texto, los agrupa en líneas, consulta /StructTreeRoot para recuperar encabezados y roles de lista en PDFs etiquetados, detecta separadores multicolumna y saltos de orden de lectura, agrupa párrafos y emite sintaxis Markdown.

Desde la v0.3.36, en PDFs etiquetados el convertidor lee StructRole(Heading(1..6) | ListItem | ListItemLabel | ListItemBody) directamente de /StructTreeRoot en lugar de deducir el nivel del encabezado por el tamaño de la fuente. La información de rol se propaga a través de MCRs anidados (H1 → Span → MCR, LI → LBody → Span → MCR). En documentos no etiquetados sigue vigente el fallback geométrico: negrita + 5 % más de tamaño promociona a H4, y is_ordered_list_marker reconoce 1. / 12. / a) / iv. / A. y descarta pies de figura y años.

Multicolumna: los spans con la misma baseline separados por > max(3 × font_size, 30 pt) se tratan como cruce de columna. Los saltos de orden de lectura hacia atrás en X (patrón column-major último→primer-span) ahora cortan párrafos en lugar de fusionarlos en tokens sin sentido.

RTL: el reorden bidi está desactivado por defecto — el reorden visual→lógico incondicional de borradores previos rompía PDFs ya en orden lógico (el nombre hebreo בנימין se invertía). Los marcadores **bold** espurios alrededor de glifos árabes contextuales se eliminan. Cuando la entrada venga en orden visual, invoca manualmente text::bidi::reorder_visual_to_logical (Rust).

Imágenes inline están limitadas a 200 KB de payload base64 (añadido en la v0.3.36). Las imágenes que superan el límite emiten un comentario HTML con el tamaño original; usa image_output_dir para volcarlas al disco.

Quick Example

Python

from pdf_oxide import PdfDocument

doc = PdfDocument("paper.pdf")
md = doc.to_markdown(0, detect_headings=True)
print(md)

Node.js

const { PdfDocument } = require("pdf-oxide");

const doc = new PdfDocument("paper.pdf");
const md = doc.toMarkdown(0, { detectHeadings: true });
console.log(md);
doc.close();

Go

import pdfoxide "github.com/yfedoseev/pdf_oxide/go"

doc, _ := pdfoxide.Open("paper.pdf")
defer doc.Close()
md, _ := doc.ToMarkdown(0)
fmt.Println(md)

C#

using PdfOxide.Core;

using var doc = PdfDocument.Open("paper.pdf");
var md = doc.ToMarkdown(0);
Console.WriteLine(md);

WASM

const doc = new WasmPdfDocument(bytes);
const md = doc.toMarkdown(0, true);
console.log(md);

Rust

use pdf_oxide::PdfDocument;
use pdf_oxide::converters::ConversionOptions;

let mut doc = PdfDocument::open("paper.pdf")?;
let options = ConversionOptions { detect_headings: true, ..Default::default() };
let md = doc.to_markdown(0, &options)?;
println!("{}", md);

API Reference

to_markdown(page_index, ...) -> str

Convert a single page to Markdown.

Python Signature

doc.to_markdown(
    page: int,
    preserve_layout: bool = False,
    detect_headings: bool = True,
    include_images: bool = True,
    image_output_dir: str | None = None,
    embed_images: bool = True,
) -> str

JavaScript Signature

doc.toMarkdown(pageIndex, detectHeadings?, includeImages?, includeFormFields?) -> string

Rust Signature

pub fn to_markdown(
    &mut self,
    page_index: usize,
    options: &ConversionOptions,
) -> Result<String>
Parameter Type Default Description
page_index int / usize / number – Zero-based page index
preserve_layout bool false Preserve visual layout positioning
detect_headings bool true Detect headings based on font size and weight
include_images bool true Include images in output
image_output_dir str / None None Directorio donde guardar las imágenes extraídas (solo Python/Rust). No se ve afectado por el límite inline de 200 KB.
embed_images bool true Incrustar las imágenes como data URIs base64 (solo Python/Rust). Los payloads de más de 200 KB emiten un comentario HTML placeholder con el tamaño original (v0.3.36).
include_form_fields bool true Include form field values (Python/JS)

Returns: Markdown string for the page.

to_markdown_all(...) -> str

Convert all pages to Markdown, separated by horizontal rules (---).

Python Signature

doc.to_markdown_all(
    preserve_layout: bool = False,
    detect_headings: bool = True,
    include_images: bool = True,
    image_output_dir: str | None = None,
    embed_images: bool = True,
) -> str

JavaScript Signature

doc.toMarkdownAll(detectHeadings?, includeImages?, includeFormFields?) -> string

Rust Signature

pub fn to_markdown_all(
    &mut self,
    options: &ConversionOptions,
) -> Result<String>
Parameter Type Default Description
preserve_layout bool false Preserve visual layout
detect_headings bool true Detect headings
include_images bool true Include images
image_output_dir str / None None Image output directory
embed_images bool true Embed images as base64

Returns: Markdown string for all pages joined with --- separators.

to_markdown_with_ocr(page_index, model_path, options) -> str

Convert a page to Markdown with OCR fallback for scanned pages. When the page has little or no extractable text, OCR is used to recognize text from the rendered page image. Requires the ocr feature.

Parameter Type Description
page_index usize Zero-based page index
model_path &str Path to the OCR model files
options &ConversionOptions Conversion options

Rust

let mut doc = PdfDocument::open("scanned.pdf")?;
let options = ConversionOptions { detect_headings: true, ..Default::default() };
let md = doc.to_markdown_with_ocr(0, "/path/to/models", &options)?;
println!("{}", md);

ConversionOptions

The ConversionOptions struct controls all conversion behavior.

Field Type Default Description
preserve_layout bool false Preserve visual layout with positioning
detect_headings bool true Auto-detect headings from font size clusters
extract_tables bool false Extract tables (experimental)
include_images bool true Include images in output
image_output_dir Option<String> None Save images to this directory
embed_images bool true Embed images as base64 data URIs
reading_order_mode ReadingOrderMode Auto How to determine reading order
bold_marker_behavior BoldMarkerBehavior Conservative Bold marker application strategy

How It Works

The Markdown conversion pipeline operates in several stages:

  1. Text Extraction – Extracts TextSpan objects from the page content stream, capturing text, position, font, size, weight, and color.

  2. Character Clustering – Groups characters into words based on inter-character gaps, then words into lines based on vertical proximity.

  3. Reading Order – Determines reading order using either the Tagged PDF structure tree (preferred) or a graph-based spatial analysis of text block positions.

  4. Heading Detection – When detect_headings is enabled, clusters font sizes across the page to identify heading levels. Larger and bolder text is mapped to #, ##, ### headings.

  5. Formatting – Applies bold (**text**) and italic (*text*) markers based on font weight and style metadata.

  6. Table Detection – Identifies tabular layouts using spatial analysis of aligned text blocks and emits GFM-style Markdown tables.

  7. Whitespace Cleanup – Normalizes spacing, removes redundant blank lines, and ensures consistent paragraph breaks.

Advanced Examples

Convert entire PDF to a Markdown file

Python

from pdf_oxide import PdfDocument

doc = PdfDocument("book.pdf")
md = doc.to_markdown_all(detect_headings=True)

with open("book.md", "w", encoding="utf-8") as f:
    f.write(md)

Node.js

const fs = require("node:fs");

const doc = new PdfDocument("book.pdf");
const md = doc.toMarkdownAll();
fs.writeFileSync("book.md", md);
doc.close();

Go

doc, _ := pdfoxide.Open("book.pdf")
defer doc.Close()
md, _ := doc.ToMarkdownAll()
os.WriteFile("book.md", []byte(md), 0644)

C#

using var doc = PdfDocument.Open("book.pdf");
var md = doc.ToMarkdownAll();
File.WriteAllText("book.md", md);

WASM

const doc = new WasmPdfDocument(bytes);
const md = doc.toMarkdownAll(true);
writeFileSync("book.md", md);
doc.free();

Convert with images saved to a directory

use pdf_oxide::PdfDocument;
use pdf_oxide::converters::ConversionOptions;

let mut doc = PdfDocument::open("report.pdf")?;
let options = ConversionOptions {
    detect_headings: true,
    include_images: true,
    embed_images: false,
    image_output_dir: Some("output/images".to_string()),
    ..Default::default()
};

let md = doc.to_markdown_all(&options)?;
std::fs::write("output/report.md", &md)?;

Page-by-page conversion with progress

from pdf_oxide import PdfDocument

doc = PdfDocument("report.pdf")
pages = doc.page_count()

parts = []
for i in range(pages):
    md = doc.to_markdown(i, detect_headings=True)
    parts.append(md)
    print(f"Converted page {i + 1}/{pages}")

full_md = "\n\n---\n\n".join(parts)
with open("report.md", "w") as f:
    f.write(full_md)

Disable heading detection for flat text

doc = PdfDocument("form.pdf")
md = doc.to_markdown(0, detect_headings=False)
# All text rendered as paragraphs, no # headings