What Markdown is and how it becomes HTML
Markdown is a lightweight way to write formatted text using ordinary characters. A line starting with # becomes a heading, double asterisks make bold text, a dash at the start of a line makes a list item, and square brackets followed by a URL in parentheses make a link. The source stays readable as plain text yet can be turned into web markup.
This tool uses the open-source marked library with its default settings. It produces HTML: headings become h1 to h6 tags, paragraphs become p tags, lists become ul or ol with li items, and so on. The result is an HTML fragment, meaning the content only, without the html, head and body tags of a complete page.
Common reasons to convert Markdown to HTML
Many people write in Markdown because it is fast and distraction-free, but the destination often wants HTML: a content management system, an email template, a help article, or an editor with no Markdown support. Converting lets you write once and paste the markup where it is needed.
It is also a way to check how your Markdown will look, since the live preview shows the rendered result beside the source. If the HTML you produce needs tidying afterward, the HTML beautifier can reformat it.
How to use the Markdown converter
- Type or paste text into the Markdown box. A sample with a heading, bold and italic text, a list and a link is preloaded.
- Watch the Preview panel, which re-renders as you type and scrolls if the content is long.
- Click Copy HTML to copy the generated markup. The button briefly shows a check mark on success.
- Or click Download HTML to save the markup as a file named document.html.
On narrow screens the two panels stack vertically. The conversion happens in your browser, so your text is not sent to a server.
Things to watch out for
- The download is a fragment, not a full page. Wrap it in your own template if you need a doctype, head and body.
- No styling is included. The HTML has no CSS and takes on the look of wherever it is pasted. The preview uses this site's article styles, so it may look different elsewhere.
- Raw HTML is passed through. HTML tags or scripts in your Markdown are kept in the output and shown in the preview without sanitizing. Do not paste untrusted content, and sanitize anything that came from someone else before publishing.
- Dialect differences. Markdown has several flavors, and features like tables follow marked's defaults, which may not match your destination platform.
- Blank lines matter. Paragraphs and lists often need an empty line before them.
When the preview looks wrong, the cause is usually a missing blank line or a stray unclosed marker such as an asterisk.