How do I share markitdown output online?

Pipe the markitdown output into curl against mdshare.live's POST /api/documents endpoint. The response gives you a shareable link. No login, no account, no API key. Example: markitdown report.pdf | curl -X POST -H 'Content-Type: text/markdown' --data-binary @- https://mdshare.live/api/documents

How do I share pandoc output as a link?

Convert your file to markdown with pandoc, then POST it to mdshare.live's API. Example: pandoc input.docx -t gfm | curl -X POST -H 'Content-Type: text/markdown' --data-binary @- https://mdshare.live/api/documents. The response includes a share URL valid for 90 days.

Does mdshare convert PDF or DOCX directly?

No. mdshare is the sharing layer — it accepts markdown only. Use markitdown (Microsoft) or pandoc to convert from PDF, DOCX, HTML, EPUB, or other formats into markdown first, then share. The two-tool split keeps each tool focused: converters convert, mdshare shares.

Can my AI agent do the convert-and-share in one step?

Yes. Install the mdshare MCP server (npx mdshare-mcp) and your agent can call upload_markdown with a file_path argument. If the file is a PDF or DOCX, run markitdown or pandoc first to produce a .md file, then point upload_markdown at that path. The agent never has to load the markdown into its context.

Convert with markitdown or pandoc, share with mdshare

markitdown and pandoc turn anything into markdown. mdshare turns markdown into a link. Together they cover the full path from "PDF on disk" to "URL in someone's inbox" — no login, no account, no upload UI.

Each tool stays focused: converters convert, mdshare shares. Pipe one into the other and you get a one-line workflow that works for humans at a terminal and for AI agents calling tools.

markitdown → mdshare

markitdown is Microsoft's converter for PDF, DOCX, PPTX, XLSX, HTML, audio (with transcription), and images. Install it with pip install markitdown[all].

One-liner — convert and share:

markitdown report.pdf | curl -X POST \
  -H "Content-Type: text/markdown" \
  --data-binary @- \
  https://mdshare.live/api/documents

The response is JSON with a share_url field. Open it, send it to a teammate, paste it into Slack — that's the whole flow.

If you want the URL extracted directly:

markitdown report.pdf | curl -sX POST \
  -H "Content-Type: text/markdown" \
  --data-binary @- \
  https://mdshare.live/api/documents \
  | jq -r .share_url

pandoc → mdshare

pandoc handles a wider format matrix (LaTeX, EPUB, RST, OPML, org-mode, Jupyter notebooks, and more). Use GitHub-flavored markdown as the output target — it round-trips cleanly through mdshare's renderer.

pandoc thesis.tex -t gfm | curl -X POST \
  -H "Content-Type: text/markdown" \
  --data-binary @- \
  https://mdshare.live/api/documents

For DOCX with embedded images, extract media to a folder first (mdshare doesn't host binaries — only markdown):

pandoc spec.docx -t gfm --extract-media=./media -o spec.md
# review spec.md, then:
curl -X POST -H "Content-Type: text/markdown" \
  --data-binary @spec.md \
  https://mdshare.live/api/documents

Docling → mdshare

Docling (IBM) is purpose-built for RAG pipelines — PDF, DOCX, PPTX, HTML, images, with strong table and layout recovery. Install with pip install docling.

docling report.pdf --to md --output - | curl -X POST \
  -H "Content-Type: text/markdown" \
  --data-binary @- \
  https://mdshare.live/api/documents

Marker → mdshare

Marker is the go-to PDF→markdown converter for LLM ingestion — fast, accurate on math and tables, GPU-accelerated. Install with pip install marker-pdf.

marker_single paper.pdf --output_dir ./out
curl -X POST -H "Content-Type: text/markdown" \
  --data-binary @./out/paper/paper.md \
  https://mdshare.live/api/documents

Firecrawl → mdshare

Firecrawl scrapes any URL and returns clean markdown — strips nav, ads, and boilerplate. Useful for turning a blog post or doc page into a shareable artifact you can annotate.

curl -sX POST https://api.firecrawl.dev/v1/scrape \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $FIRECRAWL_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"url":"https://example.com/post","formats":["markdown"]}' \
  | jq -r .data.markdown \
  | curl -X POST -H "Content-Type: text/markdown" \
      --data-binary @- https://mdshare.live/api/documents

Jina Reader → mdshare

Jina Reader is a free URL→markdown service — prefix any URL with r.jina.ai/ and you get clean markdown back. No API key needed for basic use.

curl -s https://r.jina.ai/https://example.com/post \
  | curl -X POST -H "Content-Type: text/markdown" \
      --data-binary @- https://mdshare.live/api/documents

From an AI agent (MCP)

If you're driving this from Claude, Cursor, Windsurf, or another MCP client, install the mdshare MCP server once:

npx mdshare-mcp

Then ask the agent to convert and share. It runs markitdown, pandoc, docling, or marker via shell, then calls upload_markdown with a file_path argument — the markdown never enters the conversation context, so a 200-page PDF costs the same tokens as a haiku.

Full setup for every supported client: Share markdown with AI.

Why split conversion and sharing?

markitdown and pandoc are both excellent at what they do — there's no good reason to rebuild conversion server-side, and plenty of reasons not to (MIME parsing, security surface, format drift). mdshare's job ends and begins at "here's some markdown, give me a link." Keeping the layers separate means each one stays small and the pipe between them stays a single character.

The same logic runs in reverse — if you already have markdown, mdshare doesn't care where it came from. Hand-written, generated by an LLM, exported from Notion or Obsidian, piped out of pandoc — same endpoint, same response shape, same shareable link.

FAQ

Does mdshare convert PDF or DOCX?

No — by design. Use markitdown or pandoc upstream. mdshare is the sharing layer; it accepts markdown only. This keeps the service tiny, fast, and free.

What about images and other binaries?

mdshare stores markdown text only. If your converter extracts images, they'll appear as local file references in the markdown — those won't render in the shared view. Either host the images elsewhere (GitHub, S3, Imgur) and rewrite the markdown to point at them, or strip the images before uploading.

How long does the link last?

90 days. Re-upload to refresh, or generate a new link from the admin URL. mdshare is built for ephemeral sharing, not archival.

Can I edit after uploading?

Yes — the create response includes an admin_url for editing in the browser, plus an edit_key if you want to PUT or PATCH from your script. Re-running markitdown and pushing a PATCH is a common loop for documents that change underneath you.

Try mdshare → Use with Claude / MCP REST API About mdshare