Markshift Support
Markshift converts files on your Mac, offline: documents, spreadsheets and images, and any document into lean Markdown for AI.
Requires macOS 15 or later, on Apple silicon or Intel.
Get in touch
Email support@critstudios.com with questions, bug reports or feature requests. I usually reply within a few working days.
If you are reporting a problem with a particular file, it helps to know the file type, roughly how large it is, and what the conversion notes said.
Common questions
Does Markshift send my documents anywhere?
No. Conversion happens entirely on your Mac. The app makes no network connections and has no network permission, so it works the same with Wi-Fi switched off.
Why does my scanned PDF take longer?
Pages without a text layer are read using on-device text recognition, which is slower than reading embedded text. The conversion notes tell you when this happened, so you know which parts to check.
What is the difference between the two output profiles?
Compact for AI uses CSV tables, keeps JSON compact and leaves out page headings, which costs fewer tokens. Readable Markdown uses pipe tables, formatted JSON and page headings, which reads better for a person. Existing results keep whatever settings converted them; retry a file to apply a change.
Which tokenizer should I pick?
Counts are exact for the tokenizer you select. Other model families use different vocabularies of a similar size, so treat the number as a close guide rather than an exact figure for those.
My old .xls or .ppt file will not open.
Older binary Excel and PowerPoint files are not supported. Open the file in Excel or PowerPoint and save it as .xlsx or .pptx first. Older Word .doc files do convert.
A password-protected PDF will not convert.
Unlock it and save an unprotected copy, then convert that.
Are images included in the output?
In Markdown for AI, no. Text around an image is preserved, and the conversion notes tell you when images were left out. When you turn a Word file into a Word document or a PDF, its pictures carry over. PowerPoint images and charts, and Excel charts, are not included.
A very large spreadsheet or book came out incomplete.
Row, column and chapter limits are set in Conversion Settings. When a limit is reached the result says so. Raise the limit and retry; larger limits need more memory.
Privacy
Markshift collects nothing. See the privacy policy.
Markshift is made by Kamalanarayanan under CRIT Studio.