zenfmt 0.3.5

Convert documents to Markdown.

Pandoc showed how useful a universal document converter can be. zenfmt is a small attempt to explore that idea with an engine written in Zig.

This page converts locally in your browser. It does not upload the file.

1 · Source document

Advanced options

Format is detected from the file's contents, not its name. 19 formats are supported.

Loading the browser engine…

2 · Markdown output · read only


  

Available in zenfmt 0.3.5

Use the same converter as a small HTTP service.

For workflows that need a shared endpoint, zenfmt serve exposes conversion, health, and metrics from the same executable. Open mode stays on loopback by default. Secure mode adds users, API keys, an audit log, and a small administration interface.

zenfmt serve
curl -s -T report.docx "http://127.0.0.1:8998/api/v1/convert?to=markdown"
zenfmt serve --secure --data-dir ./zenfmt-data
Distribution1 fileCLI, server, store migrations, and web assets
Interface3 themesSystem by default, with Light and Dark choices
Native releases7 targetsLinux, macOS, and Windows archives

The release is intended to remain modest in its requirements. It does not bundle Java, Python, OCR, VLM, or model assets. Read the server guide or choose a native archive.

Need help?

A small reference benchmark

The conversion benchmark

The full release benchmark is incomplete. Earlier reference run. Ratios divide the comparison tool by zenfmt, so a value above 1.0 means the comparison used more of that measure on shared files.

Native CLI

Geometric means over the 14 files converted by zenfmt and AnyDoc.

Speed ratio6.9×AnyDoc wall time / zenfmt
CPU ratio7.9×AnyDoc CPU time / zenfmt
Peak memory ratio10.1×AnyDoc peak RSS / zenfmt

Long-running server, measured separately

Warm HTTP conversion against Apache Tika Server on the same host and corpus. These values are not mixed into the native CLI ratios.

Warm latency ratio31.1×Tika / zenfmt over 16 shared files
Peak memory ratio34.2×Tika / zenfmt sampled RSS
Throughput at 1 client552.7 / 4.4zenfmt / Tika documents per second

Explanation, method, and raw data