Does MarkItDown preserve equations as math markup or an honest fallback?
MarkItDown corrupted all six equations rather than preserving them as math or providing an honest fallback. Fractions, exponents and subscripts became disordered fragments, while the surrounding prose remained accurate.
1 of 1 test case failed
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The test case
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Equations — math markup or honest fallbackFailEvidence
We ran MarkItDown’s conversion method once on the complete PDF and saved the returned Markdown to a file.
| | ∂A | ∂Q | | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | | + | =0 | (1) | | | ∂t | ∂x | |
Returned Markdown: broken equations, with Windows line endings; LF normalisation reproduces the receipt’s output fingerprint.
Copied from Output file (Markdown), lines 16–19
Open the Markdown file ↗| | 2 | | 2 | | ---- | --- | ----- | ---- | | ∂Q ∂ | Q | ∂η gn | Q|Q| | (2) | + | +gA | + | =0 | | ----- | --- | --- | --- | | | ( ) | | 4/3 | | ∂t ∂x | A | ∂x | AR |
Copied from Output file (Markdown), lines 22–29
−μx (3) | η(x,t)=η | e | cos(ωt−kx) | | | -------- | --- | ---------- | --- | 0 with η the amplitude at the bar, ω the angular frequency of the harmonic, k the wavenumber and μ the 0
Copied from Output file (Markdown), lines 36–41
2 ω χ 1/2 8n cη 0 μ= , χ= (4) c(2(1+χ 2 )) 3πh 4/3
Copied from Output file (Markdown), lines 46–50
b n(h)=n + (5) ∞ 1/3 h
Copied from Output file (Markdown), lines 66–70
η −η | o m| ε= (6) η o
Copied from Output file (Markdown), lines 88–92
| ✗ | Expected: Preserve equations as LaTeX or MathML, or provide an honest fallback rather than garbled text.Found: Of six source equations, none became LaTeX, MathML or an honest fallback; they broke into tables or loose fragments, with no image references or placeholders. |
The default pipeline finished converting the complete PDF, so this is not an execution failure. It failed the math requirement: neither usable equations nor an honest fallback survived.
Success without a warning. The conversion reported success without warning that the equations in the returned Markdown were corrupted.
Configuration and setup
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- Pass: the tool did everything the test expected, and nothing it said contradicts the correct answer.
- Fail: at least one expected behaviour clearly didn't happen; the test case's result says which one and quotes the tool.
- Not gradable: our evidence couldn't settle the outcome (for example a record we needed is missing). It is never counted as a fail, and the test case's result says what's missing.
Where this sits in the benchmark
This page is one cell of a larger study: one tool, one scenario. Only this benchmark's frame appears here.
| Level | Name | Scope |
|---|---|---|
| Benchmark | Converting a complex PDF into clean Markdown with an open-source library → | 12 scenarios · 10 tools |
| Capability | Equations & Mathematical Notation → | |
| Scenario | A document containing mathematical equations → | |
| Tool | MarkItDown → |
Global scenario definition → · Global capability definition → · MarkItDown product page →
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