On your own machine
Some conversions never need to leave your computer. No account, no upload, no credits — and they work with the network switched off.
This is the right choice when the file is sensitive, when you have a lot of them, or when you simply do not want to sign up to convert one document.
Two ways to do it
| How | Who it's for | What you install |
|---|---|---|
| Ainalyn — the desktop app | You want to click, not type | One download for Windows, macOS or Linux |
convilyn — the command line | You are automating, or converting in bulk | pip install "convilyn[all]" |
Ainalyn is a free beta — see Convilyn & Ainalyn. The command line is the same conversion engine, packaged for scripts; developers can also call it from Python directly.
What converts here
| What | Formats | What it needs |
|---|---|---|
| Documents → Markdown | PDF, Word, PowerPoint, Excel, CSV, XML, plain text | nothing extra for text and CSV; one small package per document type |
| Older office files | .doc, .odt, .rtf, .xls, .ods, .ppt, .odp | LibreOffice, which is free |
| Ebooks | .epub, .mobi, .azw3 | Calibre, which is free |
| Images ↔ images | 26 formats — JPG, PNG, WebP, AVIF, HEIF, TIFF, SVG, RAW and more | the image add-on |
| PDF pages | merge, split, extract pages, rotate, password-protect | the PDF add-on |
Converting a document to Markdown keeps its shape: headings stay headings, lists stay lists, tables stay tables, and pictures are saved alongside the text so the links still work. That matters if the next thing you do is paste it into an AI tool — a document that arrives with its structure intact is one the AI reads correctly and cheaply.
When it can't, it tells you why
You never have to guess whether a conversion will work. Ask first:
$ convilyn local doctor
✓ csv, txt, md ready
✓ pdf ready
✗ odt, rtf, ods needs LibreOffice — https://www.libreoffice.org/download/There are three different reasons a conversion might be unavailable, and the message tells you which one you have:
- Something is not installed yet. The message names exactly what to install and the command to do it.
- It works, but not as well. Without the image add-on, a picture that appears on forty pages is saved forty times instead of once. The conversion still succeeds.
- Your computer cannot write that format at all. Some formats can be read but not produced. Installing more will not change it, so the message says so rather than sending you on an errand.
What stays on your machine
Everything. Nothing is uploaded, no API key is read, no credits move, and no record of the file reaches us. If the network is off, it still works.
What still needs the cloud
Reading text out of a picture, turning speech into text, and every multi-step AI workflow run in the cloud, because they need models your laptop does not have. Those are Goal Lane and are priced in credits.
Where to go next
- Turbo Lane — the same conversions in the cloud, also free
- Convilyn & Ainalyn — the desktop app
- Developer docs — calling this from your own code