Markdown to plain text
Paste Markdown from a README, a chat answer or a note and get the same text without the symbols - no #, **, backticks or link brackets - ready for an email, a form field or a text message. Paragraphs and line breaks stay where they were.
Runs in your browser: nothing you enter is sent anywhere.
How to use it
- Paste the Markdown on the left.
- Choose whether list items keep a “- “ or number at the start and whether links keep their URL.
- Copy the plain text on the right.
How it works
The text is processed line by line. Fenced code is copied unchanged. Tables are detected by their separator row and turned into tab-separated lines. Block syntax at the start of a line goes: heading marks, quote arrows, list markers and task boxes. Then the inline syntax is removed from each line - images, links, emphasis, strikethrough and HTML tags - while inline code and escaped characters are protected so they come out as written. Runs of more than one empty line are reduced to one.
Example
See **the docs** at [our site](https://example.com). becomes See the docs at our site., or See the docs at our site (https://example.com). with link URLs kept.
Tips
- Underscores inside words, as in my_var_name, are not treated as italics, so code names survive.
- Nested lists keep their indentation, so the structure is still visible as plain text.
- To get HTML instead of plain text, use the Markdown to HTML converter.
Frequently asked questions
What does the converter remove?
Heading marks, bold, italic and strikethrough markers, inline code backticks and code fences, link and image syntax, blockquote arrows, horizontal rules, link reference definitions, footnote markers, task list boxes, table borders and HTML tags. Backslash escapes such as \* become the plain character.
What happens to links and images?
A link keeps its text, and with "Keep link URLs" on its address follows in brackets, like "the docs (https://example.com)". An image is replaced by its alt text, and bare <https://…> links become the address itself.
How are tables converted?
Each row becomes one line with the cells separated by tabs, and the row of dashes under the header is removed. Pasted into a spreadsheet, the tabs split the cells into columns again.
Does it change code blocks?
No. The lines inside a fenced code block are kept exactly, including underscores and asterisks, and only the ``` or ~~~ fence lines are removed. Inline code keeps its text without the backticks.