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fix(markitdown-ocr): make PyMuPDF an optional dependency to fix AGPL licensing concern #1717

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fix(markitdown-ocr): make PyMuPDF an optional dependency to fix AGPL licensing concern #1717

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26 changes: 25 additions & 1 deletion packages/markitdown-ocr/README.md
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Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -24,6 +24,28 @@ The plugin uses whatever OpenAI-compatible client you already have. Install one
pip install openai
```

### Optional: Malformed PDF fallback (PyMuPDF)

`markitdown-ocr` includes a fallback for PDFs that `pdfplumber` cannot open (e.g. truncated or malformed files). This fallback uses [PyMuPDF](https://pymupdf.readthedocs.io/) (`fitz`), which is licensed under **AGPL-3.0**. PyMuPDF is **not installed by default** to avoid imposing AGPL requirements on users who do not need it.

To enable the malformed-PDF fallback:

```bash
pip install 'markitdown-ocr[pymupdf]'
```

Or install everything at once:

```bash
pip install 'markitdown-ocr[all]'
```

> **License notice:** Including `PyMuPDF` (via the `[pymupdf]` or `[all]` extras) adds an AGPL-3.0
> dependency to your project. If you distribute software that links PyMuPDF, you must comply with
> the AGPL — typically by making your application's source code available. See the
> [PyMuPDF license](https://github.com/pymupdf/PyMuPDF?tab=AGPL-3.0-1-ov-file) for details.
> If AGPL is incompatible with your project's license, install `markitdown-ocr` without this extra.

## Usage

### Command Line
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -188,7 +210,9 @@ Contributions are welcome! See the [MarkItDown repository](https://github.com/mi

## License

MIT — see [LICENSE](LICENSE).
`markitdown-ocr` itself is MIT licensed — see [LICENSE](LICENSE).

**Dependency notice:** The optional `[pymupdf]` extra installs [PyMuPDF](https://github.com/pymupdf/PyMuPDF), which is **AGPL-3.0** licensed. Installing this extra is opt-in. If you do not install it, `markitdown-ocr` operates entirely under MIT-compatible licenses.

## Changelog

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11 changes: 10 additions & 1 deletion packages/markitdown-ocr/pyproject.toml
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Expand Up @@ -28,7 +28,6 @@ dependencies = [
"markitdown>=0.1.0",
"pdfminer.six>=20251230",
"pdfplumber>=0.11.9",
"PyMuPDF>=1.24.0",
"mammoth~=1.11.0",
"python-docx",
"python-pptx",
Expand All @@ -39,10 +38,20 @@ dependencies = [

# llm_client is passed in by the user (same as for markitdown image descriptions);
# install openai or any OpenAI-compatible SDK separately.
#
# NOTE: PyMuPDF (fitz) is AGPL-3.0 licensed. Install the [pymupdf] extra only
# if you need fallback support for malformed PDFs and accept the AGPL terms.
[project.optional-dependencies]
llm = [
"openai>=1.0.0",
]
pymupdf = [
"PyMuPDF>=1.24.0",
]
all = [
"openai>=1.0.0",
"PyMuPDF>=1.24.0",
]

[project.urls]
Documentation = "https://github.com/microsoft/markitdown#readme"
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