Word to Markdown

Word to Markdown (DOCX → Markdown converter)

Convert Word documents to beautiful Markdown. Via command line, as a Node library, or in your browser. An even better version of the original word-to-markdown.

Try it in your browser at word2md.com, or use it from the command line — no clone required:

npx word-to-markdown input.docx > output.md

What it converts

• Paragraphs and line breaks
• Headings
• Bold, italic, and strikethrough
• Superscript and subscript — preserved as inline <sup>/<sub> tags
• Bullet lists, and numbered lists (kept as 1./2./3. by default)
• Nested lists
• Tables
• Links
• Footnotes and endnotes — converted to GFM/Pandoc [^1] footnotes
• Images — embedded inline as base64 data URIs, or extracted to files
• Equations — converted to LaTeX: inline $…$, or a $$ block for an equation on its own line

Notes and limitations

• Numbered lists are kept as 1./2./3. ordered lists. Pass { numberedLists: 'bullets' } (library) or --bullet-lists (CLI) to convert them to bullet lists instead (matching the original word-to-markdown).
• Images are inlined as base64 data URIs by default. To extract them to files with relative links instead, use { images: 'extract' } (library — the bytes come back on ConvertResult.images) or --image-dir <dir> (CLI). Drop them entirely with { images: 'strip' } / --strip-images. On the web, documents with images offer a Download .zip (Markdown + an images/ folder). For full control, pass a custom Mammoth image handler via options.mammoth.
• Underline is dropped by default (Mammoth's default, since underlines are easily confused with links). Pass { underline: 'preserve' } (library) or --underline (CLI) to keep it as an inline <u> tag.
• Footnotes and endnotes become standard GFM/Pandoc footnotes — a [^1] reference in the body and a [^1]: … definition at the end — which render on GitHub and in the web preview. Pass { footnotes: 'preserve' } (library) or --preserve-footnotes (CLI) to instead keep Mammoth's raw <sup> links and numbered note list (useful for CommonMark targets that lack footnote support). Notes whose bodies span multiple paragraphs are converted with indented continuation paragraphs.
• Text boxes are converted as paragraphs after the containing paragraph. A text box saved without Word's VML fallback (as some other tools write them) is dropped, and convertWithWarnings warns.
• Comments are dropped during the .docx → HTML step, and convertWithWarnings warns with how many had text. To keep them, map them in a Mammoth style map, e.g. { mammoth: { styleMap: ['comment-reference => sup'] } }.
• Headers and footers are dropped. convertWithWarnings warns when one has text beyond a page number.
• Equations (Office Math) become LaTeX: inline $…$, or a $$…$$ block when the equation is on its own line, which GitHub and most Markdown math renderers (KaTeX, MathJax) display. Fractions, scripts, roots, sums and integrals, brackets, functions and limits, accents, and matrices are converted. Pass { equations: 'strip' } (library) or --strip-equations (CLI) to drop them instead, with a convertWithWarnings warning.
• Heading levels come from Word's paragraph styles, not from font size.

How is this different from the original?

TL;DR: This project is a complete rewrite, using modern tools and libraries, and is much faster and more reliable. The output should be the same or better. Feedback welcome!

A note on privacy

Word to Markdown is designed with privacy as a core principle. The application operates entirely client-side:

• Complete client-side processing: When using the web interface, all document conversion happens locally in your browser using JavaScript. Your documents never leave your computer.
• No server uploads: When using the web interface, files are processed entirely on your device. No document content is ever transmitted to any server.
• No personal data collection: The application does not collect, store, or transmit any personal information or document contents.
• Privacy-first analytics: The hosted version at word2md.com uses only privacy-centric Cloudflare Analytics for anonymous usage statistics. No Google Analytics or user tracking.
• Self-hosting option: For maximum privacy, you can run the application locally or self-host it without any analytics whatsoever.

Whether you use the command line tool, run it locally in your browser, or use the hosted version, your documents and privacy are protected.

Command line

Run it directly with npx (downloads and runs the latest published version):

npx word-to-markdown path/to/your/file.docx > output.md

Or install it globally to get the w2m command:

npm install -g word-to-markdown
w2m path/to/your/file.docx > output.md

The converted Markdown is written to stdout and any document warnings (encryption, sensitivity labels, and the like) to stderr, so a redirect captures only the Markdown. The command exits with status 1 and a friendly message if the file is missing, unreadable, or not a valid .docx. Only .docx is supported — re-save older .doc files as .docx first.

To read the document from stdin, pass - as the file, or leave it out and pipe the file in:

cat report.docx | w2m > report.md
curl -sL https://example.com/report.docx | w2m - -o report.md

Options:

• -o, --output <file> — write the Markdown to <file> instead of stdout (warnings still go to stderr). -o - means stdout.
• --bullet-lists — convert numbered lists to bullets instead of keeping 1./2./3..
• --underline — preserve underlined text as inline <u> tags (dropped by default).
• --strip-images — remove images instead of embedding them as base64 data URIs.
• --image-dir <dir> — extract images to <dir> and link them relatively, instead of embedding base64. Links resolve relative to where you save the Markdown, e.g. w2m --image-dir images report.docx > report.md, or with -o, w2m -o out/report.md --image-dir images report.docx (images land in out/images/).
• --preserve-footnotes — keep Word footnotes as raw <sup> links and a numbered note list instead of GFM [^1] footnotes.
• --strip-equations — drop Word equations instead of converting them to LaTeX.
• -q, --quiet — print nothing to stderr except errors: no warnings and no "Wrote …" notes.
• --strict — exit with status 2 if the document has warnings, so a script can tell "converted, but check it" (2) from "failed" (1). The Markdown is still written. Combine with --quiet to rely on the exit status alone.
• --verbose — On failure, also print the underlying error and stack trace.
• -V, --version — print the version.

MCP server

w2m mcp runs a local Model Context Protocol server on stdio, so AI agents can convert .docx files on your machine. Like the website, it never uploads anything: the agent passes a file path, and the server reads and converts the file locally.

In Claude Desktop, it's one click: download word-to-markdown.mcpb and double-click it. Claude Desktop installs it as an extension. You don't need Node or a terminal, since Claude Desktop includes Node.

Add it to Claude Code:

claude mcp add word-to-markdown -- npx -y word-to-markdown mcp

Or to any MCP client that takes a JSON config:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "word-to-markdown": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "word-to-markdown", "mcp"]
    }
  }
}

It has one tool, convert_docx_to_markdown:

• path (required): the .docx to convert. Prefer an absolute path; relative paths resolve against the server's working directory.
• output_path: write the Markdown to this .md (or .markdown) file instead of returning it, which is handy for long documents. The tool won't write through a symlink.
• image_dir: extract images into this folder and link them. It must be a relative folder inside output_path's folder (or the .docx's). By default images are dropped, because base64 images would flood the agent's context.
• overwrite: replace output_path or image files that already exist. Off by default, so the tool refuses rather than clobbering a file. That matters when an agent is acting on instructions it read in a document.
• bullet_lists, preserve_footnotes: same as the CLI flags.

It returns the Markdown and any document warnings, also as structured content.

In the browser, word2md.com registers the same conversion as WebMCP tools (convert_docx_to_markdown, taking the file as base64, and get_converted_markdown) for agents in browsers that support it. They run in the tab, just like dropping a file.

Use as a library

Published to npm as word-to-markdown. It ships as an ES module with TypeScript declarations and requires Node 22.13 or later.

npm install word-to-markdown

import convert, { convertWithWarnings } from 'word-to-markdown';

// Just the Markdown:
const markdown = await convert('path/to/your/file.docx');

// Markdown plus any document warnings (e.g. encryption, sensitivity labels):
const { markdown, warnings } = await convertWithWarnings(
  'path/to/your/file.docx',
);

Both functions accept either a file-path string (Node) or an ArrayBuffer (Node or the browser):

const { markdown } = await convertWithWarnings(arrayBuffer);

API

• convert(input, options?): Promise<string> — resolves to the Markdown.
• convertWithWarnings(input, options?): Promise<{ markdown: string; warnings: string[]; warningDetails: WarningDetail[]; images? }> — also returns human-readable warnings for encrypted, protected, or sensitivity-labeled documents and for dropped content, and (in extract mode) the extracted images. warningDetails has one { kind, message, detail? } entry per warning, where kind is encrypted, sensitivity, confidentiality, protected, or content-loss and detail is the document's label or Mammoth's raw message. Use it to present or translate warnings without parsing the English text.
• convertHtml(html, options?): Promise<string> — converts an HTML string, such as rich text copied from Word, Google Docs, or a web page, with the same cleanup. There's no .docx, so mammoth, images: 'extract', and imageDir don't apply.

input is a file-path string (Node) or an ArrayBuffer. options (type ConvertOptions) is optional:

• images — 'inline' (default) embeds images as base64 data URIs; 'strip' removes them; 'extract' replaces each with a relative ![](imageDir/imageN.ext) link and returns the bytes on ConvertResult.images (use convertWithWarnings to retrieve them).
• imageDir — link/path prefix for extracted images (default 'images'); only applies with images: 'extract'.
• numberedLists — 'ordered' (default) keeps 1./2./3.; 'bullets' converts numbered lists to bullets.
• underline — 'ignore' (default) drops underlines; 'preserve' keeps them as inline <u> tags.
• footnotes — 'gfm' (default) converts footnotes and endnotes to [^1] references and definitions; 'preserve' keeps Mammoth's raw <sup> links and numbered note list.
• equations — 'latex' (default) converts Word equations to $…$ / $$…$$ LaTeX; 'strip' drops them.
• mammoth / turndown — escape hatches forwarded to Mammoth and Turndown respectively.

// Extract images to files and write them out yourself:
const { markdown, images } = await convertWithWarnings('file.docx', {
  images: 'extract',
});
// markdown → ![](images/image1.png); images → [{ path, contentType, bytes }]

Error handling

Conversion throws typed errors so you can respond to each failure precisely. All of them extend WordToMarkdownError, so error instanceof WordToMarkdownError catches any of them.

import convert, {
  UnsupportedFileError,
  FileNotFoundError,
  InvalidFileError,
  FilePermissionError,
  ConversionError,
} from 'word-to-markdown';

try {
  const markdown = await convert('path/to/your/file.docx');
} catch (error) {
  if (error instanceof UnsupportedFileError) {
    // a .doc or password-protected file — only unprotected .docx is supported
  } else if (error instanceof FileNotFoundError) {
    // the path doesn't exist (or runs through something that isn't a directory)
  } else if (error instanceof InvalidFileError) {
    // not a valid or parseable .docx (or the path is a directory)
  } else if (error instanceof FilePermissionError) {
    // the file couldn't be read, or is in a blocked system directory
  } else if (error instanceof ConversionError) {
    // something failed mid-conversion — see error.cause
  }
}

Running Locally

Get set up

1. Clone the repo
2. Run npm install

Command line (from source)

Run npm run build:js once, then node build/cli.js path/to/your/file.docx.

Run the site locally

npm run dev starts the Astro dev server. To preview a production build, run npm run build followed by npm run preview.

Self-Hosting

To self-host the static site using Docker Compose:

1. Clone the repository
2. Run npm install && npm run build
3. Run docker compose up -d
4. Access at http://localhost:3000

This serves dist/ with plain nginx, so it skips what the Cloudflare Worker and public/_headers add in production: the Accept-Language redirect on /, the /api/event counter (requests to it 404), the security headers, and long-lived caching for /_astro/*. Conversion itself runs in the browser and works the same. For a production-like local setup, run npm run build and then npx wrangler dev.

More context

See the README of the original Word to Markdown for the project's motivation.

The old way

The Original Word to Markdown is 10 years old. The conversion process was as follows:

1. Use LibreOffice to convert the Word document to HTML.
2. Use a bunch of RegEx to clean up the HTML
3. Use Premailer to inline the CSS
4. Use Nokogiri to manipulate the HTML further
5. Use Reverse Markdown to convert the HTML to Markdown
6. Use a bunch of RegEx to clean up the Markdown

Not only did this process require installing and shelling out to a huge binary (LibreOffice), but it was very fragile, and key projects like Reverse Markdown are no longer maintained. I tried experimenting with Pandoc, but it had many of the same limitations.

The new way

1. Use Mammoth.js to convert the Word document to HTML.
2. Use domino, the DOM Turndown parses with, to clean up the HTML (unwrap code-block tables, expand merged table cells, add a header row, strip literal bullet characters).
3. Use Turndown to convert the HTML to Markdown.
4. Use Markdownlint to clean up the Markdown.
5. Use Prettier to format it consistently.

All of these projects are actively maintained and heavily used, and they let us convert the document faster, entirely in JavaScript. That also means it runs in the browser: word2md.com converts your document on your own device, without uploading it anywhere.

It's still young, but so far, I've found the output to be better, with much less manual cleanup required. Notice something is off? Please open an issue.