Markdown to HTML converter

How to convert Markdown to HTML

1. Select the input format. Use Markdown for text with # headings, **bold** and lists. Use Plain text for an email, a note or anything without Markdown marks.
2. Paste the text and select Convert to HTML. The converter loads on the first conversion and runs in your browser. Up to 500,000 characters at a time.
3. Check the preview, then copy or download. The preview shows the HTML as a browser renders it. The HTML box under it holds the code. Download gives you a .html file.

What each Markdown mark becomes

Markdown is a set of plain text marks that stand for HTML tags. The converter follows CommonMark, the common specification, plus GitHub-flavored Markdown (GFM), which adds tables, task lists and strikethrough.

A blank line separates paragraphs. A single line break inside a paragraph stays a space when the browser shows it, which is the Markdown rule. If your text uses single line breaks on purpose, for example in an address or a poem, select Single line breaks become <br>.

Example

This Markdown from a help article:

## Returns

You can return an item within **30 days**.

- Keep the receipt
- [Read the terms](https://example.com/terms)

becomes this HTML:

<h2>Returns</h2>
<p>You can return an item within <strong>30 days</strong>.</p>
<ul>
<li>Keep the receipt</li>
<li><a href="https://example.com/terms">Read the terms</a></li>
</ul>

Why the converter removes some HTML

Markdown lets you write raw HTML between the marks, and a converter passes it through. That is useful for a <details> block or a table with merged cells. It is also how a copied file can carry code that runs when the HTML is shown: a <script> tag, an onerror handler on an image, or a link to javascript:.

So every result goes through DOMPurify, a widely used HTML sanitizer, before it reaches the preview or the HTML box. It removes scripts, event handlers and script links. The converter also removes style tags and attributes, forms, buttons and iframes, because they can change or cover the page that shows the HTML. When it removes something, the result says how many parts it removed, so you know the output is not the same as your input. SVG and MathML are removed too.

If you need inline styles or an embed in the final page, add them in your CMS or template after you paste. Do not turn off sanitizing for Markdown that other people wrote.

Plain text to HTML

Plain text mode does not read any Markdown. It makes three changes and no others:

• Escapes special characters. <, >, & and quotes become entities, so text such as "5 < 10" shows as written and cannot become a tag.
• Makes paragraphs. Each block of text between blank lines becomes a <p>.
• Keeps line breaks. A single line break becomes <br>.

Use it for a support reply, a notice or a product description that you want to paste into an HTML field without surprises. Asterisks and number signs stay as they are.

What it does not do

• No full page. The output is the content only, without <html>, <head> or a style sheet. Paste it into a page that already has them.
• No extensions. Footnotes, math, Mermaid diagrams, emoji shortcodes and heading IDs are not part of CommonMark or GFM, so they stay as text.
• No syntax colors. Code blocks get a language- class (for example language-js) that a highlighter on your site can use, but no colors.
• Relative links stay relative. A link to /pricing works only on the site where you paste the HTML.

Markdown, HTML and your help content

Many teams write help articles in Markdown, in a docs repository or a note app, and publish them as HTML. Clean HTML with real headings and lists is also what crawlers and AI assistants read most reliably: a heading tag tells them where a topic starts. Bold text that only looks like a heading does not.

To go the other way, use the HTML to Markdown converter. For Word files, use Word to Markdown, and for PDFs, PDF to Markdown. If you want a customer support chatbot that answers from your published help pages, Paperlink AI imports them from your website and says when the pages do not hold the answer.