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convert-documents-to-markdown — Claude Code skill: how to install

Converts office documents, spreadsheets, and PDFs into GitHub-Flavored Markdown via anydoc. Useful when an agent must read DOCX or XLSX files without manual copy-pasting.

Install into Claude Code · Skills CLI (Vercel) All methods and platforms ↓ 
npx skills add firecrawl/anydoc --skill convert-documents-to-markdown -a claude-code
Open on GitHub

What convert-documents-to-markdown does

The skill instructs the agent to run the @firecrawl/anydoc CLI via npx on demand. Format detection happens automatically from file contents, covering Word, Excel, OpenDocument, RTF, EPUB, CSV, and PDF formats. If a file lacks an extension or arrives from standard input, pass --format to specify the parser explicitly.

For large documents, the CLI writes output directly to disk with -o. That avoids flooding the agent context window with thousands of raw lines. Running the tool requires Node 20 or higher already available on the system.

Standard files convert locally. Scanned documents or image-based PDF pages halt the CLI with exit code 3. Local OCR is not supported. In that situation, rerun the conversion with --ocr hosted to process the file through Firecrawl Parse.

What it helps with

  • read .xlsx and .csv spreadsheets directly inside an agent session
  • convert .docx documents and .pptx decks into clean Markdown
  • export parsed multi-page PDFs to disk using the -o parameter
  • process scanned PDF pages via cloud OCR using --ocr hosted

Example prompts for the agent

  • Convert quarterly_report.xlsx to markdown and save it to report.md
  • Turn the pitch.pptx presentation into markdown with anydoc
  • Parse specification.docx and extract the main requirements

How to install convert-documents-to-markdown

1Skills CLI (Vercel)

npx skills add firecrawl/anydoc --skill convert-documents-to-markdown -a claude-code

2Manually: put the files in place

~/.claude/skills/convert-documents-to-markdown/SKILL.md

Copy the whole skill folder; for one project use .claude/skills/convert-documents-to-markdown/

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Questions about convert-documents-to-markdown

How do I install convert-documents-to-markdown in Claude Code?

Run npx skills add firecrawl/anydoc --skill convert-documents-to-markdown -a claude-code in your terminal.

What does convert-documents-to-markdown do?

It guides the agent on how to call @firecrawl/anydoc. The tool converts Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OpenDocument, RTF, EPUB, CSV, and PDF files into GitHub-Flavored Markdown.

How does the tool handle scanned PDF files?

The CLI exits with code 3 on scanned pages because it lacks local OCR. Run the command again with --ocr hosted to parse the scan via the Firecrawl Parse service.

Source text

SKILL.md · MIT 
---
name: convert-documents-to-markdown
description: Convert Word (.doc, .docx), PowerPoint (.ppt, .pptx), Excel (.xls, .xlsx), OpenDocument (.odt, .ods, .odp), RTF, EPUB, CSV, and PDF files to GitHub-Flavored Markdown. Use when a task needs the contents of an office document, spreadsheet, presentation, ebook, or PDF you cannot read directly.
license: MIT
metadata:
  author: firecrawl
---

# Convert documents to Markdown

Run the anydoc CLI. It needs Node 20+ and no install:

```bash
npx -y @firecrawl/anydoc <file>              # Markdown to stdout
npx -y @firecrawl/anydoc <file> -o out.md    # write to a file
npx -y @firecrawl/anydoc - --format csv < f  # read stdin
```

Rules:

1. Supported inputs: `.doc`, `.docx`, `.docm`, `.odt`, `.rtf`, `.epub`, `.pdf`, `.ppt`, `.pps`, `.pot`, `.pptx`, `.pptm`, `.ppsx`, `.ppsm`, `.odp`, `.xls`, `.xlsx`, `.xlsm`, `.xlsb`, `.ods`, `.csv`.
2. The format is detected from the file content. Pass `--format <name>` only when detection cannot work: CSV from stdin, or a missing or wrong extension.
3. Exit codes: 0 success, 1 the document could not be converted, 2 usage error, 3 pages of a PDF need OCR. Failures print one `anydoc: <message>` line to stderr. The CLI never prompts.
4. For a large document, write to a file with `-o` and read the parts you need instead of streaming everything into context.
5. Scanned and image-only pages need OCR, which anydoc does not do, so the document exits 3. Rerun with `--ocr hosted` to send it to [Firecrawl Parse](https://firecrawl.dev/parse). No signup needed. Pass `--api-key` or set `FIRECRAWL_API_KEY` for higher limits.
6. Inside a Node, Python, or Rust codebase, prefer the library over shelling out: `@firecrawl/anydoc` on npm, `firecrawl-anydoc` on PyPI, `anydoc` on crates.io. Each exposes the same `to_markdown` / `toMarkdown` API.

© firecrawl · MIT · firecrawl/anydoc

See also

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