# Word, PDF and slides to Markdown for Claude

Convert a folder of documents to Markdown and hand them to Claude.

## Steps

1. Press "connect" on the Documents card and choose the folder your documents are in; subfolders are included.
2. Press "select export folder" and choose a separate folder beside your other exports, like `~/Documents/converted`.
3. Keep "Markdown" ticked on the `format` row and press "sync now". Scanned PDF pages are read by Apple's text recognition on your Mac.
4. On the MCP Server card press "start", then connect Claude Code:

```sh
claude mcp add --transport http exporter http://localhost:8744/mcp
```

5. Ask Claude to list and read the documents: "Summarize the contracts in Work."

## What you get

```text
~/Documents/converted/
  Work/
    Quarterly report.md
    Pitch deck.md
```

The same folder shape as your documents, each file with a short front matter (`title`, `source`, `format`, `pages`, `scanned`, `modified`), and converted again when the document changes. `search` ranks Apple Notes, Contacts and Messages, so Claude reaches documents with `list`, `get_recent` and `read`.

## Pitfalls

- The export folder cannot be the documents folder or a folder inside it, and the documents folder cannot sit inside the export folder: the app does not let you pick either.
- Pages, Numbers and Keynote files are not read: export them to Word, PowerPoint, Excel or PDF first.
- On the free allowance your 10 most recently modified documents convert. A red triangle on a row gives the reason one failed.

The file types and fields are in [the Documents docs](https://exporter.dev/docs/documents), the tools in [the MCP server docs](https://exporter.dev/docs/mcp).

## Related

- [Documents](https://exporter.dev/docs/documents): File types, scans, fields and fixes
- [MCP server](https://exporter.dev/docs/mcp): Connect Claude and other agents
- [Documents](https://exporter.dev/documents): Word, slides, sheets and PDFs to Markdown

---

human version: https://exporter.dev/guides/documents/documents-in-claude
every page: https://exporter.dev/llms.txt