Converting PDFs to clean Markdown is a critical step in many document processing pipelines, especially for RAG and LLM training data preparation. This comparison evaluates four modern OCR tools: PaddleOCR-VL-1.5, MinerU, HunyuanOCR, and MonkeyOCR. Each tool is tested on a variety of PDF types including scanned documents, tables, and multi-column layouts. Key metrics include character error rate, table structure preservation, and processing speed. PaddleOCR-VL-1.5 shows strong performance on Chinese documents, while MinerU excels at complex layouts. HunyuanOCR offers a good balance of speed and accuracy, and MonkeyOCR is notable for its lightweight deployment. The results provide actionable guidance for teams selecting an OCR tool for production use.
A practical benchmark of four OCR tools for converting PDFs to Markdown, covering accuracy, speed, and format preservation.