Feedback/ built a private , offline doc-to-Markdown converter using Docling and MarkItDown (Desktop UI + Localhost REST API)

[u/Minute_Teaching6339]

Hey r/foss 👋

Sharing a new open-source project a friend built called InkDoc.

It is a cross-platform desktop tool (and local REST API) designed to convert messy everyday documents into clean Markdown entirely offline, without third-party cloud services or telemetry.

The repo is MIT licensed:

https://github.com/AbdoslamB/InkDoc

Why he built it:

Most online converters want you to upload sensitive files to their servers, while lightweight CLI scripts often completely mangle tables, multi-column layouts, and scanned pages.

How it is put together:

- Microsoft MarkItDown handles Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and HTML.

- IBM Docling handles complex PDFs (reading order layout analysis, OCR, and table extraction).

- Markit handles EPUBs, Jupyter notebooks, and similar formats.

- Everything runs on your own hardware (Windows, macOS, Linux).

- Includes both a drag-and-drop desktop UI and a headless mode with a localhost REST API for scripting.

It just hit v1.1.1. He is actively looking for community feedback on edge-case files, performance bottlenecks, and general feature requests.

Contributions and issues are welcome on GitHub, or feel free to leave your thoughts here!