firecrawl parse
Turn a local document into clean markdown on disk. Supports PDF, DOCX, DOC, ODT, RTF, XLSX, XLS, HTML/HTM.
Quick start
Always save to .firecrawl/ with -o — parsed docs can be hundreds of KB and blow up context if streamed to stdout. Add .firecrawl/ to .gitignore.
mkdir -p .firecrawl
# File → markdown
firecrawl parse ./paper.pdf -o .firecrawl/paper.md
# AI summary
firecrawl parse ./paper.pdf -S -o .firecrawl/paper-summary.md
# Ask a question about the doc
firecrawl parse ./paper.pdf -Q "What are the main conclusions?" \
-o .firecrawl/paper-qa.md
Then read the output incrementally with head, grep, or rg.
Run firecrawl parse --help for the full option list.
Done when: the markdown, summary, or answer is written under .firecrawl/ and you have inspected it with bounded reads.
Tips
- Quote paths with spaces:
firecrawl parse "./My Doc.pdf" -o .firecrawl/mydoc.md.
- Max upload size: 50 MB per file.
- Credits: ~1 per PDF page; HTML is 1 flat.
- Check
.firecrawl/ before re-parsing the same file.
- To check your credit balance (recommended for batch processing and similar workflows), use
firecrawl credit-usage (requires authentication).
See also