Turn .HTM or .HTML files into a clean MARKDOWN file with XConvert—upload your HTML, convert, then download the result.
Converting HTML to Markdown is simple and private with XConvert's free browser-based tool. No signup required, no files uploaded to any server — the entire conversion runs instantly in your browser.
Paste your HTML content — Copy your HTML source code into the input editor on the left. You can paste raw HTML from a web page's source, a CMS export, an email template, or any .html file.
Review the Markdown output — The converted Markdown appears in real time in the output panel on the right. As you edit or adjust the HTML input, the Markdown updates automatically.
Configure conversion options — Choose settings like how to handle inline styles (strip or ignore), whether to use reference-style or inline links, and how to format code blocks. These options let you tailor the output to your preferred Markdown style.
Copy or download the Markdown — Click the copy button to grab the Markdown text, or download it as an .md file. The result is clean, readable Markdown ready for your documentation, README, or content workflow.
Since XConvert processes everything client-side, your HTML content stays on your device. This is especially important when converting proprietary web content, internal documentation, or pages containing sensitive information.
HTML to Markdown conversion is the process of transforming structured HTML markup into lightweight, human-readable Markdown syntax. While HTML uses verbose tags like <h1>, <strong>, <a href="">, and <ul><li> to define content structure, Markdown represents the same elements with minimal characters — #, **, [text](url), and -. The result is content that is dramatically easier to read, edit, and maintain in plain text form.
This conversion is valuable because a huge amount of existing web content is locked in HTML format. Blog posts in WordPress, documentation in legacy CMS platforms, and web pages across the internet are all stored as HTML. When you need to migrate that content to a Markdown-based system — whether it is a static site generator like Hugo or Jekyll, a Git repository README, or a modern documentation platform like Notion or Obsidian — converting HTML to Markdown is the essential first step.
The challenge is that HTML is far more expressive than Markdown. HTML supports complex layouts, inline styles, custom attributes, embedded scripts, and dozens of semantic elements that have no Markdown equivalent. A good HTML to Markdown converter handles the common elements cleanly while gracefully managing the edge cases, either by preserving raw HTML where necessary or by stripping unsupported features to produce clean output.
| Feature | HTML | Markdown |
|---|---|---|
| Readability | Verbose with tags; hard to read raw | Clean plain text; highly readable |
| Editing | Requires knowledge of tag syntax | Intuitive — minimal syntax to learn |
| File extension | .html, .htm |
.md, .markdown |
| Headings | <h1> through <h6> |
# through ###### |
| Bold text | <strong>text</strong> or <b>text</b> |
**text** |
| Links | <a href="url">text</a> |
[text](url) |
| Images | <img src="src" alt="alt"> |
 |
| Tables | <table>, <tr>, <td> elements |
Pipe-delimited (GFM extension) |
| Custom styling | Full CSS and inline style support | No native styling capability |
| Version control | Diff-unfriendly due to tag noise | Diff-friendly; clean line-by-line changes |
| Portability | Tied to web rendering | Works in any text editor or platform |
Migrating CMS content to static site generators — When moving a blog or documentation site from WordPress, Drupal, or another CMS to a Markdown-based static site generator like Hugo, Jekyll, or Gatsby, you need to convert hundreds of HTML pages to Markdown files. This converter handles individual pages, and you can process your content systematically.
Creating README files from web documentation — Many projects have documentation published as HTML web pages but lack a proper README.md in their repository. Converting the existing HTML documentation to Markdown gives you a ready-made README that renders beautifully on GitHub, GitLab, and Bitbucket.
Simplifying markup for content editors — Non-technical team members often struggle with HTML. Converting existing HTML content to Markdown makes it accessible to writers, marketers, and editors who can then maintain and update the content without needing to understand HTML tags.
Archiving web content in a portable format — HTML pages depend on external stylesheets, scripts, and assets to render correctly. Converting to Markdown strips away that dependency, giving you a portable, plain-text version of the content that will remain readable decades from now, regardless of technology changes.
Cleaning up messy HTML from rich text editors — WYSIWYG editors like TinyMCE, CKEditor, and even Google Docs produce notoriously bloated HTML with unnecessary <span> tags, inline styles, and empty elements. Converting to Markdown and back to HTML (using our Markdown to HTML converter) is an effective way to clean up that markup.
Preparing content for Markdown-based collaboration tools — Platforms like GitHub Issues, Slack, Discord, Jira, and Confluence use Markdown for formatting. If your source content is in HTML, converting it to Markdown lets you paste it directly into these tools with proper formatting intact. For related data transformations, our JSON to CSV converter can help when you need to restructure exported content data.
The fundamental challenge in HTML to Markdown conversion is that HTML is a superset of what Markdown can express. Markdown was designed to cover the most common writing needs — headings, emphasis, links, images, lists, code, and blockquotes — but HTML supports hundreds of elements and attributes that have no Markdown equivalent. Elements like <details>, <summary>, <figure>, <figcaption>, <abbr>, and <mark> simply do not exist in Markdown syntax. A converter must decide whether to drop these elements, preserve them as raw HTML (which Markdown allows), or approximate them with the closest available syntax.
Tables present a particularly interesting case. While GitHub Flavored Markdown supports basic tables with pipe syntax, HTML tables can include features like colspan, rowspan, <thead>, <tfoot>, nested tables, and complex cell content that GFM tables cannot represent. A good converter will handle simple tables by converting them to pipe-delimited Markdown, but for complex tables it may need to preserve the raw HTML. Similarly, nested lists with mixed ordered and unordered items, definition lists (<dl>, <dt>, <dd>), and deeply nested structures can be difficult to represent cleanly in Markdown's indentation-based nesting.
Inline styles and CSS classes are another area where information is inevitably lost. HTML elements often carry style attributes for colors, fonts, alignment, and spacing, or class attributes that reference external stylesheets. Markdown has no mechanism for styling, so these attributes are stripped during conversion. This is usually desirable — the goal of converting to Markdown is to extract the content structure, not the presentation — but it means the visual appearance of the original HTML cannot be fully preserved. If you need to retain specific styling, you may want to keep those sections as raw HTML within your Markdown document.
Clean your HTML before converting — Remove unnecessary wrapper <div> elements, inline styles, and empty tags before pasting into the converter. Cleaner input produces cleaner Markdown output. If your HTML comes from a WYSIWYG editor, it likely contains significant bloat that will affect the result.
Check table complexity before converting — Simple tables with basic text cells convert well to GFM pipe tables. If your HTML tables use colspan, rowspan, or nested tables, the converter may preserve them as raw HTML. Consider simplifying complex tables before conversion.
Verify link and image paths — The converter transforms <a> and <img> tags into Markdown link and image syntax, but it does not modify the URLs themselves. After conversion, check that relative paths still point to the correct locations in your new file structure.
Handle code blocks carefully — HTML <pre><code> blocks are converted to fenced code blocks in Markdown. If the original HTML includes a language class (like class="language-python"), the converter will use it to add the language identifier. Verify that code content is preserved exactly, especially if it contains characters that have special meaning in Markdown.
Review heading hierarchy — HTML pages sometimes use headings inconsistently (jumping from <h1> to <h4>, or using multiple <h1> tags). The converter translates them directly to Markdown heading levels. After conversion, review and fix the heading hierarchy to ensure a logical document structure.
Use the round-trip test for validation — Convert your HTML to Markdown, then convert the Markdown back to HTML using our Markdown to HTML converter. Compare the original and round-tripped HTML to identify any content or structure that was lost in translation. This is the most reliable way to verify conversion quality.
Inline styles (style attributes) are stripped during conversion because Markdown has no mechanism for styling. The converter extracts the text content and structural meaning (headings, emphasis, links) while discarding presentational attributes. If you need to preserve specific styling, consider keeping those HTML sections as raw HTML within your Markdown.
Yes, but for best results you should paste only the content area of the page rather than the full HTML source. Full pages include <head>, <nav>, <footer>, scripts, and stylesheets that are not meaningful content. Extract the main content (usually inside a <main> or <article> tag) before converting.
Simple tables with <thead>, <tbody>, <tr>, <th>, and <td> elements are converted to GitHub Flavored Markdown pipe tables. Complex tables with colspan, rowspan, nested tables, or rich cell content may be preserved as raw HTML since GFM table syntax cannot represent these features.
Elements like <details>, <summary>, <mark>, <abbr>, <sup>, <sub>, and custom elements are either preserved as raw HTML in the Markdown output or stripped depending on the converter settings. Markdown allows inline HTML, so preserving them is valid and ensures no content is lost.
No. XConvert's HTML to Markdown converter runs entirely in your browser using client-side JavaScript. Your HTML content is never transmitted to any server. This makes it safe for converting proprietary web pages, internal documentation, and any content containing sensitive information.
Nested <ul> and <ol> elements are converted to indented Markdown lists. The converter uses consistent indentation (typically 2 or 4 spaces) to represent nesting levels. Mixed ordered and unordered nested lists are supported, though deeply nested structures (4+ levels) may require manual review for readability.
You can convert the text content of HTML emails to Markdown, but email-specific HTML (table-based layouts, inline styles for email client compatibility, MSO conditional comments) will be stripped or simplified. The result captures the content and basic structure but not the email-specific layout. This is useful for archiving email content or repurposing it for web use.
HTML comments (<!-- comment -->) are stripped during conversion by default since Markdown does not have a native comment syntax. If you need to preserve comments, some Markdown processors support HTML comments passed through as raw HTML, but this is not part of the standard Markdown specification.
<br> tags and line breaks?Single <br> tags are converted to Markdown line breaks (either two trailing spaces or a backslash at the end of a line, depending on the converter settings). Multiple consecutive <br> tags may be converted to paragraph breaks. The converter aims to produce natural-looking Markdown rather than preserving every explicit line break.
For content that uses standard Markdown-compatible elements (headings, paragraphs, emphasis, links, images, lists, code blocks, and blockquotes), the round-trip conversion preserves content faithfully. However, HTML features without Markdown equivalents — such as inline styles, custom attributes, complex tables, and semantic elements like <figure> — will be lost or simplified during the HTML-to-Markdown step. For straightforward content, round-tripping works well. For complex HTML, expect some manual cleanup. You can test this yourself using this tool alongside our Markdown to HTML converter.