PDF to Markdown vs OCR: Which Conversion Should You Use?
PDFs are containers. Some contain real selectable text. Others are just images of pages. That difference decides whether direct PDF extraction or OCR is the better Markdown workflow.
Use PDF text extraction when text is selectable
If you can select and copy text from a PDF, direct text extraction is usually the first option. It is faster than OCR and avoids many character-recognition mistakes.
The tradeoff is layout. Columns, footnotes, headers, tables, and page decorations may flatten or appear out of order because PDF was designed for visual layout, not semantic structure.
Use OCR when the PDF is scanned
If a PDF is a scan or image-only file, direct extraction may return nothing useful. In that case, OCR is the right tool. You can convert pages to images and then recognize visible text.
Markdown Safe's current PDF path extracts readable embedded text. Its image path handles OCR for image files. For scanned PDFs, export or render the scanned page as an image first, then use image-to-Markdown OCR.
Review both workflows
Neither path should be treated as proof-perfect. Direct PDF extraction can lose layout, while OCR can misread characters. The safest workflow is to convert, review, then clean the Markdown in an editor.
Bottom line
Use PDF extraction for selectable text PDFs. Use OCR for image-only scans. In both cases, review the Markdown before publishing or archiving it.