# benbalter/word-to-markdown

A ruby gem to liberate content from Microsoft Word documents

Repository: https://github.com/benbalter/word-to-markdown
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/word-to-markdown
Homepage: https://word2md.com
Language: Ruby
License: MIT
License Family: permissive
Topics: converter, word, microsoft-word, markdown, ruby, libreoffice
Last push: 2026-07-30T20:33:42+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 66/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 95, release rhythm 8, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 4547, "days_push": 34, "days_rel": 602, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 1}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 1550, forks 154 (observed 2026-08-28T04:05:02.071770+00:00)

## What it is
A Ruby gem that converts Microsoft Word (.docx) documents into clean Markdown, using LibreOffice under the hood. It can be used as a library or CLI, though the maintainer recommends the newer word-to-markdown-js successor for new projects.

## Use cases
- convert docx files to markdown
- migrate Word documents into a static site
- batch convert Word docs to markdown via CLI
- extract content from Word documents programmatically in Ruby
- convert Google Docs exports to markdown
- liberate content from Word for web publishing

## When to choose
- you're already in a Ruby ecosystem and need docx-to-markdown conversion
- you need scripted or batch conversion of Word documents
- you're maintaining an existing project that already depends on this gem

## When to avoid
- you're starting a new project — the maintainer recommends word-to-markdown-js instead
- you need a pure-Ruby solution without a LibreOffice dependency
- you need a browser-based or no-install conversion tool

## Facets
- artifact type: library
- maturity: maintenance
- function: parser, cli, pdf
- domain: files, developer-tools
- platform: ruby, cli, cross-platform
- tags: docx, markdown-converter, libreoffice, word-documents, content-migration, automation

## Member repositories
- benbalter/word-to-markdown (main) score 66

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:05:02.071770+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-30T04:30:19.135897+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/benbalter/word-to-markdown (fetched 2026-08-28T04:05:02.071770+00:00, sha af18cf59d2f1)
  - homepage: https://word2md.com (fetched 2026-08-29T11:30:52.167845+00:00, sha 678be5ea85ea)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.