how-to-guide

How to Handle MissingDependencyException for Optional Format Dependencies in MarkItDown

April 11, 2026 microsoft/markitdown ↗

Catch MissingDependencyException when calling MarkItDown.convert_path() or convert_bytes(), then install the missing optional dependency using pip install markitdown[feature] where [feature] corresponds to the file format (e.g., xlsx, pdf, pptx).

MarkItDown is a Python library from Microsoft that converts various document formats to Markdown. It implements an optional dependency architecture where format-specific converters—such as those for Excel spreadsheets, PDF documents, and PowerPoint presentations—require additional packages that are not installed

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