Notion accepts Markdown when you paste it — headings become headings, bullets become bullets, tables become tables. Convert your PDF to Markdown first and the result drops into a Notion page as native blocks, not an embedded file.
Notion treats embedded PDFs as attachments — they sit in the page, you can click to preview, but the content isn't searchable from Notion's search, isn't quotable, and doesn't participate in databases. The native way to put document content into Notion is as blocks: text, headings, lists, tables. Markdown maps cleanly to those blocks, so a PDF converted to Markdown and pasted in becomes a real Notion page that behaves like any other. You can then turn sections into sub-pages, link to specific blocks, or roll content into a database row.
Drop the PDF on t0md, copy the Markdown to clipboard. Open Notion, click into a page, paste. Notion detects Markdown automatically and converts to blocks on paste — no special menu, no import step. Tables come through as Notion tables, bullet lists as bullets, headings as toggle-able H1/H2/H3 blocks. For very large documents, paste section-by-section so Notion's paste-handler doesn't hit its size limit.
Notion's File menu has Import → PDF, but it embeds rather than expanding to blocks. Pasting converted Markdown gives you native blocks you can edit, link to and search.
Simple tables yes — Markdown tables paste as Notion table blocks. Complex multi-row-spanning or nested tables flatten to plain rows. The flattening happens at PDF → Markdown, not at Markdown → Notion.
No — once it's in Notion, it's a Notion page. The PDF is the snapshot; the Notion page is where you edit going forward.