Convert Google Drive PDFs to Markdown in n8n with Parsebridge

Automatically convert new Google Drive PDFs into Markdown using Parsebridge (in n8n)

With this n8n workflow, every time you drop a PDF into a watched Google Drive folder, it’s automatically converted to Markdown via Parsebridge—and the resulting .md file is uploaded to your destination folder.

What this workflow does

This automation is designed specifically for Google Drive → Parsebridge → Markdown → Google Drive:

• Watches your source folder: The workflow triggers every minute when a new file is created in a specified Google Drive folder.
• Downloads the new file from Google Drive for processing.
• Validates file type: It checks the file MIME type and continues only if the file is a PDF.
• Converts PDF to Markdown: The PDF binary is sent to Parsebridge to extract and convert its contents into Markdown using the Parsebridge content output.
• Creates a .md file: A Markdown file is generated and named after the original PDF.
• Uploads the Markdown to your chosen destination folder in Google Drive.

Use cases

• Content republishing: Turn PDF documents (reports, manuals, policies) into Markdown for faster editing and publishing.
• Knowledge base building: Convert PDFs into Markdown so you can store or index content elsewhere.
• Automation for SaaS ops: Streamline document ingestion workflows without manual copy/paste.
• Pipeline to other tools: Instead of saving the Markdown file, route Parsebridge content to an LLM, a vector store, Notion, or Slack.

Technical details

• Google Drive Trigger (checks every minute for newly created files)
• IF node for MIME type filtering (process PDFs only)
• Convert to File to prepare the PDF binary for Parsebridge
• Parsebridge via n8n-nodes-parsebridge (Parsebridge API key)
• Google Drive upload to store the generated .md
• Nodes used: if, sticky note, google drive, convert to file, google drive trigger, n8n-nodes-parsebridge

Setup requirements: a Google Drive OAuth2 credential for all Google Drive nodes, and a Parsebridge account/API key (50 free pages on signup—no credit card).