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claude-code-skills-reference/markdown-tools/references/tool-comparison.md
daymade 3f15b8942c Release v1.27.0: Enhance markdown-tools with Heavy Mode
Add multi-tool orchestration for best-quality document conversion:
- Dual mode: Quick (fast) and Heavy (best quality, multi-tool merge)
- New convert.py - main orchestrator with tool selection matrix
- New merge_outputs.py - segment-level multi-tool output merger
- New validate_output.py - quality validation with HTML reports
- Enhanced extract_pdf_images.py - metadata (page, position, dimensions)
- PyMuPDF4LLM integration for LLM-optimized PDF conversion
- pandoc integration for DOCX/PPTX structure preservation
- Quality metrics: text/table/image retention with pass/warn/fail
- New references: heavy-mode-guide.md, tool-comparison.md

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-01-25 21:36:08 +08:00

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Markdown

# Tool Comparison
Comparison of document-to-markdown conversion tools.
## Feature Matrix
| Feature | pymupdf4llm | markitdown | pandoc |
|---------|-------------|------------|--------|
| **PDF Support** | ✅ Excellent | ✅ Good | ⚠️ Limited |
| **DOCX Support** | ❌ No | ✅ Good | ✅ Excellent |
| **PPTX Support** | ❌ No | ✅ Good | ✅ Good |
| **XLSX Support** | ❌ No | ✅ Good | ⚠️ Limited |
| **Table Detection** | ✅ Multiple strategies | ⚠️ Basic | ✅ Good |
| **Image Extraction** | ✅ With metadata | ❌ No | ✅ Yes |
| **Heading Hierarchy** | ✅ Good | ⚠️ Variable | ✅ Excellent |
| **List Formatting** | ✅ Good | ⚠️ Basic | ✅ Excellent |
| **LLM Optimization** | ✅ Built-in | ❌ No | ❌ No |
## Installation
### pymupdf4llm
```bash
pip install pymupdf4llm
# Or with uv
uv pip install pymupdf4llm
```
**Dependencies:** None (pure Python with PyMuPDF)
### markitdown
```bash
# With PDF support
uv tool install "markitdown[pdf]"
# Or
pip install "markitdown[pdf]"
```
**Dependencies:** Various per format (pdfminer, python-docx, etc.)
### pandoc
```bash
# macOS
brew install pandoc
# Ubuntu/Debian
apt-get install pandoc
# Windows
choco install pandoc
```
**Dependencies:** System installation required
## Performance Benchmarks
### PDF Conversion (100-page document)
| Tool | Time | Memory | Output Quality |
|------|------|--------|----------------|
| pymupdf4llm | ~15s | 150MB | Excellent |
| markitdown | ~45s | 200MB | Good |
| pandoc | ~60s | 100MB | Variable |
### DOCX Conversion (50-page document)
| Tool | Time | Memory | Output Quality |
|------|------|--------|----------------|
| pandoc | ~5s | 50MB | Excellent |
| markitdown | ~10s | 80MB | Good |
## Best Practices
### For PDFs
1. **First choice:** pymupdf4llm
- Best table detection
- Image extraction with metadata
- LLM-optimized output
2. **Fallback:** markitdown
- When pymupdf4llm fails
- Simpler documents
### For DOCX/DOC
1. **First choice:** pandoc
- Best structure preservation
- Proper heading hierarchy
- List formatting
2. **Fallback:** markitdown
- When pandoc unavailable
- Quick conversion needed
### For PPTX
1. **First choice:** markitdown
- Good slide content extraction
- Handles speaker notes
2. **Fallback:** pandoc
- Better structure preservation
### For XLSX
1. **Only option:** markitdown
- Table to markdown conversion
- Sheet handling
## Common Issues by Tool
### pymupdf4llm
| Issue | Solution |
|-------|----------|
| "Cannot import fitz" | `pip install pymupdf` |
| Tables not detected | Try different `table_strategy` |
| Images not extracted | Enable `write_images=True` |
### markitdown
| Issue | Solution |
|-------|----------|
| PDF support missing | Install with `[pdf]` extra |
| Slow conversion | Expected for large files |
| Missing content | Try alternative tool |
### pandoc
| Issue | Solution |
|-------|----------|
| Command not found | Install via package manager |
| PDF conversion fails | Use pymupdf4llm instead |
| Images not extracted | Add `--extract-media` flag |
## API Comparison
### pymupdf4llm
```python
import pymupdf4llm
md = pymupdf4llm.to_markdown(
"doc.pdf",
write_images=True,
table_strategy="lines_strict",
image_path="./assets"
)
```
### markitdown
```python
from markitdown import MarkItDown
md = MarkItDown()
result = md.convert("document.pdf")
print(result.text_content)
```
### pandoc
```bash
pandoc document.docx -t markdown --wrap=none --extract-media=./assets
```
```python
import subprocess
result = subprocess.run(
["pandoc", "doc.docx", "-t", "markdown", "--wrap=none"],
capture_output=True, text=True
)
print(result.stdout)
```