{"id":1233,"date":"2026-06-07T12:18:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-07T02:18:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.reefwing.com.au\/?p=1233"},"modified":"2026-06-07T12:18:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-07T02:18:09","slug":"cutting-claudes-token-bill-by-converting-pdfs-to-markdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reefwing.com.au\/?p=1233","title":{"rendered":"Cutting Claude\u2019s Token Bill by Converting PDFs to Markdown"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.reefwing.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/reefwing_A_thick_printed_document_on_a_dark_desk_its_pages_di_77e84980-aac8-4c8b-9d97-cf8be62ad375_1.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"574\" src=\"https:\/\/www.reefwing.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/reefwing_A_thick_printed_document_on_a_dark_desk_its_pages_di_77e84980-aac8-4c8b-9d97-cf8be62ad375_1-1024x574.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1234\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.reefwing.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/reefwing_A_thick_printed_document_on_a_dark_desk_its_pages_di_77e84980-aac8-4c8b-9d97-cf8be62ad375_1-1024x574.png 1024w, https:\/\/www.reefwing.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/reefwing_A_thick_printed_document_on_a_dark_desk_its_pages_di_77e84980-aac8-4c8b-9d97-cf8be62ad375_1-300x168.png 300w, https:\/\/www.reefwing.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/reefwing_A_thick_printed_document_on_a_dark_desk_its_pages_di_77e84980-aac8-4c8b-9d97-cf8be62ad375_1-768x430.png 768w, https:\/\/www.reefwing.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/reefwing_A_thick_printed_document_on_a_dark_desk_its_pages_di_77e84980-aac8-4c8b-9d97-cf8be62ad375_1.png 1456w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p id=\"610b\"><em>Claude charges you twice for every PDF page, once for the text and once for the image. Converting to Markdown drops half the bill, as long as the document\u2019s value is not in its figures.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p id=\"26da\">A 50-page PDF can cost you 75,000 to 150,000 tokens before Claude has read a word of it. On a 200,000-token context window, that is most of your working space gone on one document. The reason is not the text, it is due to the way that Claude ingests a PDF.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/medium.com\/write-a-catalyst\/cutting-claudes-token-bill-by-converting-pdfs-to-markdown-0772dc9d8edb?sk=f7fef272f7cae4afb9f29a34f51adea6\">Read More&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Claude charges you twice for every PDF page, once for the text and once for the image. Converting to Markdown drops half the bill, as long as the document\u2019s value is not in its figures. A 50-page PDF can cost you 75,000 to 150,000 tokens before Claude has read a word of it. On a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","_wp_convertkit_post_meta":{"form":"-1","landing_page":"0","tag":"0","restrict_content":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[69],"class_list":{"0":"post-1233","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-ai","7":"tag-embedded-ai","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reefwing.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reefwing.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reefwing.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reefwing.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reefwing.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1233"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.reefwing.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1233\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1235,"href":"https:\/\/www.reefwing.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1233\/revisions\/1235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reefwing.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reefwing.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reefwing.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}