DEV Community

Aadhithyan Annamalai
Aadhithyan Annamalai

Posted on

Convert Any URL or File to Markdown with One API Call (Free)

#ai #api #markdown #webdev

Convert Any URL or File to Markdown with One API Call

A free, no-API-key URL-to-Markdown conversion API that supports 11 file formats including PDF, DOCX, PPTX, and more.

If you've ever needed to feed a web page, PDF, or Word document into an LLM, you know the pain: formatting, tables, images, and nested markup don't survive copy-paste.

I built a free API that strips everything down to clean Markdown — no API key, no signup, no limits for most users.

Quick Start 

# Convert a URL
curl "https://md.replyfast.co.uk/api/convert?url=https://example.com"

# Convert a file
curl "https://md.replyfast.co.uk/api/convert/file?url=https://example.com/report.pdf"
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Response:

{
  "success": true,
  "markdown": "# Example Domain\n\nThis domain is for use in documentation examples...",
  "tokens": {
    "original": 132,
    "markdown": 33,
    "saved": 99,
    "percentage_saved": 75
  }
}
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

11 Supported Formats

Format Endpoint
URL (any HTML page) /api/convert?url=
PDF /api/convert/file?url=.pdf
DOCX (Word) /api/convert/file?url=.docx
PPTX (PowerPoint) /api/convert/file?url=.pptx
XLSX / XLS (Excel) /api/convert/file?url=.xlsx
PPT (Legacy) /api/convert/file?url=.ppt
CSV /api/convert/file?url=.csv
JSON /api/convert/file?url=.json
TXT / MD /api/convert/file?url=.txt

Using with Python 

import requests

url = "https://md.replyfast.co.uk/api/convert"
response = requests.get(url, params={"url": "https://example.com"})
data = response.json()
print(data["markdown"])
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Using with Node.js 

const res = await fetch("https://md.replyfast.co.uk/api/convert?url=https://example.com")
const data = await res.json()
console.log(data.markdown)
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Upload Files via POST 

curl -X POST -F "file=@document.pdf" "https://md.replyfast.co.uk/api/upload"
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Why I Built This

Every time I wanted to paste a web article or document into Claude or ChatGPT, I had to manually strip formatting, copy text, and clean up. LLMs work best with clean Markdown — no tall tables, no nested divs, no hidden scripts.

This API does it automatically, server-side, in ~200ms. Free forever for normal usage.

Rate Limits

  • 500 URL conversions/day per IP
  • 100 file conversions/day per IP
  • No API key needed

Tech Stack

Built on Cloudflare Workers + Hono. Open source on GitHub.

Try it now: curl https://md.replyfast.co.uk/api/convert?url=https://news.ycombinator.com

Top comments (0)