Markdown to HTML
Convert Markdown to HTML instantly. Supports headings, lists, tables, code blocks, links and more.
Ctrl + L clear | Ctrl + Enter — copy HTML
The history of Markdown
Markdown was created in 2004 by John Gruber, working with the late programmer and activist Aaron Swartz, with a single goal: writing for the web should feel as natural as writing a plain-text email. Its genius was choosing formatting characters people already used instinctively — asterisks for emphasis, hyphens for lists — so a Markdown document is readable even before conversion. The original spec was loose enough that competing interpretations multiplied, which led to the CommonMark standardization effort in 2014 and GitHub's influential GFM extensions. Today Markdown is the default writing format of the developer world: README files, documentation sites, wikis, chat apps and static blog generators all speak it.
Supported Markdown syntax
This converter supports all standard CommonMark Markdown plus GitHub Flavored Markdown extensions. Headings use one to six hash symbols. Bold uses double asterisks or underscores. Italic uses single asterisks or underscores. Strikethrough uses double tildes. Inline code uses backticks. Fenced code blocks use triple backticks with an optional language identifier. Unordered lists use hyphens, asterisks or plus signs. Ordered lists use numbers followed by periods. Blockquotes use the greater-than symbol. Tables use pipe characters.
Frequently asked questions
How do I convert Markdown to HTML?
Paste your Markdown into the input panel and the corresponding HTML appears instantly in the output — no convert button, no upload, and the conversion runs entirely in your browser. Use the HTML tab when you need the raw markup to paste into a template, CMS or email builder, and the Preview tab to confirm the result looks right before you ship it. The output is clean semantic HTML without inline styles, so it inherits whatever styling your destination applies.
Why does my Markdown render differently on different sites?
Because "Markdown" is really a family of dialects. The loose original 2004 spec left edge cases open, so platforms diverged: Reddit, Discord, Slack and GitHub each support slightly different subsets and extensions. CommonMark standardized the core in 2014, and GitHub Flavored Markdown (GFM) added the extras most people now expect — tables, strikethrough, fenced code blocks. This converter follows CommonMark plus GFM, the combination that matches what GitHub and most modern platforms render.
Can I preview the rendered HTML?
Yes. The Preview tab renders your converted HTML live, exactly as a browser will display it — headings sized, lists bulleted, links clickable, tables drawn. Toggling between HTML and Preview is the quickest way to debug Markdown mistakes: if something looks wrong in the preview, the raw HTML tab shows precisely what your syntax produced, which usually makes the missing space or unclosed asterisk obvious.
Is Markdown better than writing HTML directly?
For prose, almost always. Markdown's **bold** is faster to type and easier to read in source form than <strong>bold</strong>, and there are no tags to forget to close. HTML wins when you need precise control — custom attributes, classes, complex nested layouts — which is why Markdown deliberately allows raw HTML inline for those moments. The practical workflow most writers land on: draft in Markdown, convert, and touch up the generated HTML only where the design demands it.
Does this support GitHub Flavored Markdown?
Yes. The GFM extensions that the original Markdown spec lacked are all here: pipe-syntax tables, strikethrough with double tildes, and fenced code blocks with language hints (```js) that survive into the HTML as language classes for syntax highlighters. That means a README or GitHub comment pastes in and converts the way GitHub itself would render it, rather than degrading to plain paragraphs.