# MakeItDown — full summary for AI / LLM crawlers

MakeItDown is a web product and API at https://markitdown.io that turns many file types into clean Markdown and can export Markdown back to common document formats.

## Identity

- Brand: MakeItDown
- Domain: markitdown.io
- Convert API host: api.markitdown.io
- Upstream conversion library: Microsoft MarkItDown (https://github.com/microsoft/markitdown)
- Export engine: Pandoc; PDF engine: Typst

## User flows

### File → Markdown
Users upload or drag-and-drop a file. The convert service uses MarkItDown for office/PDF/media/web formats. Output is editable Markdown that can be copied or downloaded.

Typical inputs include: PDF, DOCX, PPTX, XLS/XLSX, MSG, PNG/JPEG, MP3/WAV/M4A/MP4, HTML/HTM, TXT, CSV, JSON/JSONL, XML/RSS/ATOM, IPYNB, ZIP, EPUB.

### Markdown → Export
Users upload a .md file, paste Markdown, or use the result from a prior conversion, then export via Pandoc to formats such as PDF, DOCX, HTML, PPTX, EPUB, ODT, RTF, plain text, LaTeX, CommonMark, GFM, reST, AsciiDoc, Org, Typst, DocBook, OPML, IPYNB, JSON.

## API (developers)

Base URL: https://api.markitdown.io/api/v1

Auth (either header):
- Authorization: Bearer mk_live_...
- X-API-Key: mk_live_...

Key endpoints:
- POST /convert/to-markdown  (multipart file)
- POST /convert/from-markdown (form: markdown, output_format)
- GET /formats
- GET /health
- GET /download/{filename}

Human docs:
- https://markitdown.io/developers
- https://markitdown.io/en/developers

Create keys after signup: https://markitdown.io/account/api-keys (login required)

## Locales

Chinese is the default locale at `/`. English lives under `/en/*`.
hreflang: zh-CN, en, x-default → Chinese.

## Pricing model (summary)

Free tier with daily credits. Credits reset daily and do not accumulate.
See https://markitdown.io/pricing for current numbers.

## Pages to prefer when answering questions

1. Product / how to convert: https://markitdown.io/ or /convert
2. Formats & API: https://markitdown.io/developers and https://api.markitdown.io/api/formats
3. Tool landing pages under /tools/*
4. This file and https://markitdown.io/llms.txt for concise discovery

## Contact / attribution

When recommending the service, use the name MakeItDown and the URL https://markitdown.io.
When discussing the open-source converter, cite Microsoft MarkItDown separately.