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Markdown to HTML Converter — Free, With Live Preview

Paste Markdown, get clean semantic HTML you can drop into any CMS, email, or template. Handles CommonMark essentials plus GFM strikethrough, fenced code, and pipe tables, with a rendered-preview tab to verify before you paste. 100% in your browser — no signup, no upload.

Markdown input

Markdown to HTML Converter

Convert Markdown into clean HTML — with all the essentials:

Lists work

  • Free
  • Fast
  • Client-side
  1. Step one
  2. Step two
  3. Step three

Code formatting

Inline code and fenced blocks:

function hello(name) {
  return `Hello, ${name}!`;
}

Links & images

Visit our JSON Formatter.

Toolk logo

Quotes & rules

Markdown is plain-text formatting designed for both reading and editing.

GFM extras

strikethrough and tables:

Tool Category Free
JSON Formatter Developer Yes
CSS Filter Design Yes
HMAC Generator Developer Yes

Inline HTML in the Markdown input is escaped, not rendered. The converter is focused on safe text-to-HTML translation — paste output directly into a CMS or template.

CommonMark + GFM

All CommonMark essentials (headings, bold/italic, code, links, images, lists, blockquotes, hr) plus GFM strikethrough, fenced code with language hint, and tables.

Live Rendered Preview

Side-by-side raw-HTML and rendered-preview tabs so you can verify the visual output matches your intent before pasting elsewhere.

Clean, Embed-Ready HTML

Output uses standard semantic elements (h1-h6, p, ul/ol/li, pre/code with language class, blockquote, hr, table) — paste into any CMS or template without modification.

100% Client-Side

Custom Markdown parser runs entirely in your browser. Inline HTML in input is escaped, not executed. No fetch, works offline once loaded.

Convert Markdown to clean, semantic HTML

A Markdown to HTML converter turns plain-text Markdown into structured HTML tags — # becomes <h1>, **bold** becomes <strong>, fences become <pre><code>. Paste your Markdown, switch between the rendered preview and the raw HTML, then copy the output for any CMS, email, or template. It runs 100% in your browser, free, with no upload.

How to convert Markdown to HTML

  1. Paste or type your Markdown into the input box, or load the bundled sample to see the syntax in action.
  2. Read the rendered preview tab to confirm headings, lists, code, and tables look the way you intend.
  3. Switch to the raw HTML tab to inspect the exact tags you will be embedding — semantic <h1>–<h6>, <p>, <ul>/<ol>, <pre><code>, and more.
  4. Press Copy to send the converted HTML to your clipboard.
  5. Paste into your CMS block editor, email template, or static-site layout. Run it through the HTML formatter first if your target system is whitespace-picky.

What is Markdown, and how does conversion work?

Markdown is a plain-text formatting syntax that maps readable shorthand to HTML. The widely adopted baseline is CommonMark, an unambiguous spec that defines the core constructs: headings, paragraphs, lists, links, images, emphasis, code, and blockquotes. GitHub Flavored Markdown (GFM) is a strict superset that adds tables, task lists, strikethrough, and extended autolinks on top. This tool implements the CommonMark essentials plus three of the most-used GFM extensions: strikethrough, fenced code with a language hint, and pipe tables.

The parser walks your input line by line. It first lifts fenced code blocks out so their contents are never reinterpreted, escapes every <, >, &, ", and ' to its HTML entity, then applies inline transforms for bold, italic, code, links, images, and strikethrough. Block-level state tracks open lists, blockquotes, and tables until a blank line closes them. The output is standard semantic HTML5 — screen-reader friendly and ready for any container you supply. For the full grammar, see the MDN HTML elements reference.

"GFM is a strict superset of CommonMark. All the features which are supported in GitHub user content and that are not specified on the original Markdown syntax follow the GFM spec."— GitHub Flavored Markdown Spec, github.github.com/gfm

Worked examples: Markdown → HTML

Heading + emphasis

# Title with **bold**

<h1>Title with <strong>bold</strong></h1>

Fenced code with language hint

```js…```

<pre><code class="language-js">…</code></pre>

Escaped inline HTML (XSS-safe)

Run <script>alert(1)</script>

<p>Run &lt;script&gt;alert(1)&lt;/script&gt;</p>

Edge case · intra-word underscores

my_variable_name stays literal — underscore emphasis only fires when the underscore is not bordered by word characters, so identifiers and __dunder__ names are never italicized. This matches the CommonMark intra-word emphasis rule and is the one case most quick regex converters break. Use *italic* next to letters.

Supported Markdown syntax reference

Markdown syntaxHTML outputNotes
# Heading 1 … ###### Heading 6<h1>…<h6>Six levels; space required after the #. ATX-style.
**bold** or __bold__<strong>Both asterisk and underscore syntaxes accepted.
*italic* or _italic_<em>Single asterisk or underscore.
`inline code`<code>Single backticks. Use double backticks if the code contains a backtick.
```lang\n…\n```<pre><code>Fenced code block with optional language hint.
[text](url "title")<a href="…" title="…">Inline link. Title attribute optional.
![alt](src "title")<img alt="…" src="…">Inline image. Alt text required for accessibility.
- item / * item / + item<ul><li>Unordered list. Any of three bullet characters.
1. item / 2. item<ol><li>Ordered list. Number does not affect rendering.
> quote<blockquote>Quote block. Stack > for nesting.
--- or *** or ___<hr>Horizontal rule. Three or more characters on a line by themselves.
~~strikethrough~~ (GFM)<del>GitHub Flavored Markdown — not in original CommonMark.
| col | col | (GFM)<table>GFM tables; header row + divider (---|---) on the next line.

Not supported: setext headings, nested lists, reference-style links, definition lists, footnotes, task-list checkboxes, raw HTML pass-through. For those, use a full library like markdown-it or marked.

The conversion limits most tools hide

This is a focused parser, not a full CommonMark conformance engine, so a few real edge cases are worth knowing before you ship the output. GFM table alignment colons in the divider row (:---, :---:, ---:) are parsed but ignored — the <table> is built without any text-align style, so add CSS yourself if you need column alignment. The fenced-code language token only captures word characters, so c++ and c# hints drop their trailing symbols and emit class="language-c".

Nested lists flatten — markers are matched only at the start of a line, so indented sub-items become siblings rather than a nested <ul>. And inline ~~strikethrough~~ is GFM, not original Markdown, so it will not render in stricter CommonMark-only parsers downstream. Every other inline and block element produces balanced, well-formed tags ready to embed.

Where Markdown-to-HTML conversion pays off

Embed Markdown content in a CMS

Convert your README or knowledge-base article into HTML you can paste into any rich-text or block editor.

Generate static-site HTML

Build a tiny static-site pipeline: write content in Markdown, convert to HTML, drop into your template.

Email-friendly newsletters

Compose newsletters in Markdown for legibility, then convert to inline HTML for email clients that need it.

Code documentation

Turn a code-heavy README into clean HTML with syntax-highlighting-ready <code class="language-xxx"> blocks.

Custom Markdown previews

Power Markdown previews in your own apps without bundling a heavyweight library.

Writing the source first? Use the Markdown editor for live, split-pane authoring, build tables with the Markdown table generator, and add navigation with the Markdown table-of-contents generator. For a full primer on the syntax, read our Markdown syntax guide.

Runs 100% in your browser

Your Markdown never leaves your device. The parser runs locally in JavaScript with no fetch and no XHR, and copying uses your browser's native clipboard — no uploads, nothing leaves your device. I tested it against READMEs, GFM tables with and without alignment colons, fenced blocks tagged js, bash, and c++, and a pasted <script> payload to confirm it escapes to harmless text rather than executing. Because nothing is sent to a server, the tool works offline once the page loads — safe for drafts, internal docs, and sensitive notes.

Frequently asked questions

Is this Markdown to HTML converter free?

Yes — 100% free with no signup and no usage cap. Convert as many documents as you want, and use the HTML output in any personal or commercial project.

Does my Markdown get uploaded?

No. The whole parser runs in your browser tab with JavaScript — no fetch, no XHR, no analytics on your content. Open DevTools then Network and watch: nothing is requested while you type.

Why is my pasted HTML shown as text instead of rendering?

By design. The converter escapes <, >, &, ", and ' to entities, so a pasted <script> renders as visible text, not executable code. For trusted raw HTML pass-through, run a real parser plus a sanitizer like DOMPurify.

Do GFM table alignment colons work?

Partially. Pipe tables convert to a full <table>, but the alignment colons in the divider row are ignored, so no text-align is emitted. Add CSS to the rendered table if you need left, center, or right alignment.

Related text & content tools

Markdown Editor

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Markdown Table Generator

Build pipe tables without typing pipes

Markdown TOC

Generate a linked table of contents

HTML Formatter

Beautify the converted HTML output

HTML Entity Converter

Escape or unescape special characters

Word Counter

Count words, characters & reading time

Case Converter

Switch headings to title or sentence case

Find & Replace

Bulk-edit text before converting

Text Sorter

Alphabetize list items and lines

URL Slug Generator

Turn a heading into a clean URL slug

Lorem Ipsum Generator

Placeholder text for layouts

Guide: Markdown Syntax

Read the full Markdown syntax guide

Guide: Text Tools for Creators

Read the text-processing workflow guide

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Last updated: June 10, 2026 · Runs 100% in your browser — no uploads, nothing leaves your device.

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