pdf-porter

Layout-aware PDF to Markdown for Claude — one tool, zero config, five minutes to set up. Uses Docling to preserve tables, multi-column layouts, and document structure that Claude's native PDF ingestion loses.

If you want the full Docling toolset, see docling-mcp by IBM Research. pdf-porter is intentionally minimal: one tool, one job.

Installation

Use with Claude Desktop (recommended)

Add to ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "pdf-tools": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["pdf-porter"]
    }
  }
}

Then restart Claude Desktop. The first time Claude calls the tool, Docling will download its model weights (~500MB). Subsequent calls are fast.

Development

git clone https://github.com/benmazzotta/pdf-porter
cd pdf-porter
uv sync --dev
uv run pytest

Tool Reference

pdf_to_markdown

You must pass either path or pdf_base64 (not both). Paths under /mnt/user-data/uploads/ (e.g. Claude Desktop uploads) are not visible to the server; for those, pass the file content as pdf_base64 instead.

Returns: Markdown string, or a bare output file path when save_output=True, or "Error: <message>" on failure.

Known Limitations

• First run: Docling downloads model weights (~500MB). You'll see a pause. Subsequent runs are fast.
• Scanned PDFs: OCR mode is not enabled in v0.1. Image-only PDFs will return empty or minimal text.
• Windows: Path handling not validated on Windows.

License

MIT. See LICENSE.