Markdown became popular precisely because it reads like plain text and still carries enough structure, headings, emphasis, lists and links, for a parser to reconstruct proper HTML from it. That only works if the parser is faithful to the handful of rules the format actually defines, rather than guessing at intent the way a careless regular expression based converter often does.
Nothing you type is sent anywhere. The conversion runs entirely in client side JavaScript, walking your Markdown source and building HTML output locally, which matters when the document being converted is an unpublished README, internal documentation or a draft that should not touch a third party server before it is finished. As a markdown renderer it produces the same structural HTML a static site generator would, without installing anything.
Which Markdown syntax this markdown to html converter supports
This converter targets the core syntax that appears in the overwhelming majority of real Markdown documents: headings written with one to six hash characters, bold with double asterisks or underscores, italic with a single asterisk or underscore, links and images, ordered and unordered lists, fenced and indented code blocks, inline code, and blockquotes written with a leading greater than sign.
Extended syntax found in some Markdown flavours, tables, footnotes, task list checkboxes and strikethrough, is outside what this specific parser targets, which is stated here plainly rather than left for you to discover as a silently missing feature. If your document depends on one of those extensions, check the rendered output carefully before publishing it.
- Headings: # through ###### for heading levels one through six.
- Emphasis: **bold**, *italic*, and combinations of the two.
- Links and images: [text](url) and .
- Lists: unordered with -, * or +, and ordered with a number and a period.
- Code: `inline code`, fenced blocks with three backticks, and blockquotes with >.
Why raw HTML in your source is escaped, not rendered
Markdown historically allows raw HTML to pass straight through unchanged, which is convenient when you genuinely control the document and want an occasional embedded tag, but is exactly the mechanism an attacker uses to smuggle a script tag into a comment field, a wiki page or any other place where user submitted Markdown ends up rendered on someone else's screen.
This markdown to html converter escapes any HTML tag found in the source rather than passing it through, turning a literal angle bracket into its safe entity equivalent before it reaches the output. That means a stray less than sign in your Markdown, or a deliberate script tag someone pasted in, shows up as visible text in the rendered result instead of executing or altering the surrounding page.
If you specifically need an HTML tag to render as markup rather than as text, add it after this conversion step in a context where you control and trust the full document, rather than relying on unescaped pass through from arbitrary Markdown input.
How this markdown parser online handles nested structure
Lists can nest, a list item can contain a paragraph and inline emphasis, and a blockquote can contain its own list, so a parser working line by line without tracking nesting produces flattened, wrong output the moment a document gets even moderately complex. This tool processes block level structure first, headings, lists, code fences and blockquotes, and only then applies inline formatting, bold, italic, links and inline code, inside whatever text remains within each block.
Fenced code blocks are handled before any inline parsing touches their contents, which is what keeps an asterisk or an underscore inside a code sample from being misread as emphasis syntax. Content between a pair of triple backtick fences is treated as literal text and HTML escaped, never interpreted as further Markdown.
Turning a readme to html for documentation and static sites
Converting a readme to html is one of the most common reasons people reach for a markdown to html converter, whether the destination is a documentation site that expects raw HTML fragments, an email newsletter tool with no native Markdown support, or a content management system that only accepts formatted HTML in its editor. Copying the rendered output directly avoids reformatting the whole document by hand in whatever editor the destination provides.
Because the HTML produced here is plain, semantic markup, headings as heading tags, lists as list tags and so on, it carries over cleanly into almost any HTML consuming system without extra classes or inline styles to strip out first, unlike output copied from some rich text editors.
Checking the result before you publish
The live preview renders the generated HTML the same way a browser would display it on a real page, which is the fastest way to catch a formatting mistake, a list that did not nest the way you expected, or a link where the URL and the label got swapped. Reading the raw HTML output next to the preview also helps confirm the heading levels match your intended document outline, since skipping from a heading one straight to a heading three without a heading two in between is easy to do by accident and bad for accessibility.
Once the output looks right, copy it directly or download it as a standalone .html file. Either way the markup was generated entirely from what you typed, with no external template applied, so what you see in the preview is exactly what ships.
| Markdown | HTML output |
|---|---|
| # Heading | <h1>Heading</h1> |
| **bold** | <strong>bold</strong> |
| *italic* | <em>italic</em> |
| [text](url) | <a href="url">text</a> |
| - item | <ul><li>item</li></ul> |
| > quote | <blockquote><p>quote</p></blockquote> |
| ```code``` | <pre><code>code</code></pre> |
How to convert Markdown to HTML
- 1
Paste your Markdown
Add Markdown text into the input box, or drop a .md file. Nothing is uploaded.
- 2
Review the live preview
Check the rendered preview to confirm headings, lists and links look the way you intended.
- 3
Convert to HTML
Press convert to generate the HTML markup for the Markdown you provided.
- 4
Copy or download
Copy the HTML to your clipboard or download it as a standalone .html file.
Related tools worth bookmarking
Sources and further reading
- Markdown: SyntaxThe original specification written by Markdown's creator, defining the core syntax this converter targets.daringfireball.net
- MDN: HTML heading elementsReference documentation for the heading tags this converter generates from Markdown hash syntax.developer.mozilla.org
- W3C: HTML5 specification introductionBackground on the HTML document model that the generated markup from this converter targets.w3.org
Frequently asked questions
Common questions about the markdown to html converter.
No, tables are part of an extended Markdown flavour rather than the core syntax this parser targets, along with footnotes, strikethrough and task list checkboxes. The supported syntax list on this page states exactly which features are covered so there is no ambiguity about what will and will not render.
No, and this is deliberate. Any HTML tag found in the source is escaped rather than passed through, so it appears as visible text in the output instead of executing or altering the page. This prevents a stray or malicious tag in Markdown from becoming live markup in whatever page the output is pasted into.
No. Fenced and inline code content is treated as literal text before any inline formatting is applied, so an asterisk or underscore that is genuinely part of code, such as a multiplication operator or a variable name, is never mistaken for Markdown emphasis syntax.
No. The block level pass and the inline formatting pass both read your Markdown directly from the text area and build HTML in memory inside the tab. An unpublished README or an internal draft is rendered without its text ever leaving the page to reach a server.
Yes. Heading levels one through six map directly to their matching HTML heading tags, preserving your document's outline exactly. Checking the preview is worth doing regardless, since skipping a heading level, such as jumping from heading one to heading three, is easy to do by accident and worth fixing before publishing.
Block level structure is parsed before inline formatting is applied, which lets a list item contain inline emphasis or a blockquote contain its own nested list without either one corrupting the other. Deeply nested combinations are supported, though very unusual nesting is worth checking in the preview before publishing.