// Choice · Build RAG and process documents
Which PDF/document parser to use for RAG
RAG quality depends heavily on parsing. Popular open-source parsers have different strengths; compare them on a sample of your own documents. We have not run a unified test yet.
verified 2026-10-103 official sources
Scenario: Build RAG and process documents →
Symptoms
- Tables are broken apart, formulas garbled, headers and footers mixed into body text
- No text comes out of scanned files
Common causes
- Plain text extraction is used for complex layouts
- Scanned files were never OCR’d
How to fix
- Lightweight conversion of many formats (Word, PowerPoint, Excel, HTML…) to Markdown: try MarkItDown first
- PDFs with complex layouts and many tables: try Docling or Marker
- Academic papers, formulas and Chinese documents: try MinerU
- Many formats feeding a data pipeline: look at Unstructured
- Pick about 20 of your own documents including tables, scans and multi-column layouts, compare each tool’s output, then decide
Official references
Compiled from official documentation and public discussions on 2026-10-10; not yet reproduced in our own environment. Follow the official docs if they differ.