Paste your Markdown into our free editor, then pick one of two buttons. .html downloads a complete styled web page. Copy HTML puts only the rendered markup on your clipboard, ready for a CMS, a newsletter tool or a blog engine.
The conversion runs in your browser through marked.js. Nothing is uploaded, and the file never leaves your machine.
That covers single documents, which is most of the need. Folders of files, scheduled builds and anything that must run without a human clicking a button belong to Pandoc or a static site generator. The table below sets out what each option is genuinely good at.
At a glance
| Fastest route | The .html button in this site's editor |
|---|---|
| Two output shapes | Full styled page, or inner markup only |
| Upload required | No, conversion runs in your browser |
| Batch & automation | Pandoc, or a static site generator |
| Dialect converted | GitHub Flavored Markdown, tables included |
The two export buttons, and when to use each
- Download .html when the file itself is the deliverable, and copy the markup when the destination already has a design.
- Both buttons produce identical body markup, so the only difference is the wrapper around it.
- The whole conversion happens in the browser, so nothing is uploaded and nothing is stored.
- Relative image paths come through unchanged, which is why pictures vanish after an upload.
- Paste or type your Markdown into the editor and read the preview pane once.
- Fix anything the preview shows in the wrong shape, especially tables and code fences.
- Click .html for a finished file, or Copy HTML for markup you will paste somewhere else.
- Want the input and output side by side instead? The Markdown to HTML converter does the same job on one screen.
Download .html for a finished file
The .html button gives you a standalone document. Your content sits inside a full HTML page with the CSS embedded. Open it in any browser and it looks like the preview pane. Use it when the file is the deliverable: an emailed report, an archived document, a simple hosted page, or something handed to a client who will install nothing.
Copy HTML for a system with its own styles
Copy HTML gives you the inner markup only. You get the <h2>, <p>, <table> and <ul> tags with no page wrapper and no styling. That is what WordPress, a newsletter builder or a corporate CMS actually wants.
Watch out: pasting a full standalone page into a CMS causes duplicated styles, clashing fonts and often a stray scrollbar. If the destination already has a design, copy the markup instead.
What each Markdown element becomes
Conversion is a direct, predictable mapping. A short document like this:
## Pricing
Our **Pro** plan costs $9/month.
- Unlimited documents
- Priority support
becomes exactly this HTML.
<h2>Pricing</h2>
<p>Our <strong>Pro</strong> plan costs $9/month.</p>
<ul>
<li>Unlimited documents</li>
<li>Priority support</li>
</ul>
Here is the full mapping for the elements you will actually use.
| Markdown | HTML output |
|---|---|
| # Title | <h1>Title</h1> |
| **bold** and *italic* | <strong> and <em> |
| [text](url) | <a href="url">text</a> |
|  | <img src="url" alt="alt"> |
| > quote | <blockquote><p>quote</p></blockquote> |
| Fenced code block | <pre><code>...</code></pre> |
| Pipe table | <table> with <thead> and <tbody> |
| --- on its own line | <hr> |
The mapping is one-way and mechanical, so the HTML you get is clean and semantic. That is the whole appeal. You write punctuation, and the converter produces the structural tags that a browser and a search engine both understand.
Five ways to convert, and their trade-offs
Pick the lightest tool that does the job. Every option below produces valid HTML. They differ in setup cost, and in how much they do for you.
| Method | Install | Best for | Trade-off |
|---|---|---|---|
| This site's editor | None | One document, right now | One file at a time |
| Pandoc | Command-line tool | Batches, scripts, other formats | Flags to learn |
| VS Code extension | Editor add-on | Converting while you write | Output varies by extension |
| Static site generator | Larger toolchain | A whole website of pages | Overkill for one file |
| A library in code | Package install | Apps that render user content | You handle sanitizing |
Which one fits your situation
- One report or README. The editor wins on effort every time.
- Docs that ship with a product. A static site generator such as Hugo, Jekyll or Astro converts every file on every build, and adds navigation, search and templates.
- An app that renders text written by users. Use a library such as marked, markdown-it or python-markdown, and pair it with a sanitizer. Raw HTML from strangers is never safe.
Batch conversion with Pandoc
When you have fifty files rather than one, Pandoc is the standard tool. After installing it, one command converts a file.
pandoc notes.md -o notes.html
pandoc notes.md -s --metadata title="My Notes" -o notes.html
pandoc -f gfm -t html *.md -o combined.html
What those three commands do
- The first outputs a fragment, the same shape as our Copy HTML button.
- The second adds
-sfor a standalone page with a proper<head>, matching the .html download. - The third reads GitHub Flavored Markdown explicitly. That matters when your files use tables, task lists or strikethrough, because Pandoc's default dialect treats them differently.
Two flags worth remembering
--css=style.css attaches your own stylesheet to a standalone page. --toc builds a linked table of contents from the headings, much as our table of contents generator does in the browser. Wrap the command in a shell loop or a Makefile, and a folder of notes becomes a folder of web pages in one keystroke.
What goes wrong in conversion
Most surprises after an export come from three causes.
1. The converter is set to the wrong dialect
Tables, task lists and strikethrough are GFM features. A converter running in strict Markdown mode passes them straight through as literal text.
Broken output Fixed
<p>| Name | Role |</p> <table><thead>...
(converter in strict (converter set to
Markdown mode) GFM, or pandoc -f gfm)
2. Relative image paths do not move
Paths survive conversion completely unchanged.  becomes <img src="img/chart.png">. The picture appears only if that folder exists at the same relative spot wherever the HTML is hosted. Uploading the HTML and leaving the images behind is the single most common cause of a broken export.
3. Raw HTML and quiet substitutions
Most converters pass your inline HTML through untouched, but sanitizing systems strip it. Anything that relied on an <img width> or a <br> needs a second look after the paste. Smart-quote and dash substitution can also change your text quietly, which matters if you have code samples sitting outside a code block.
A two-minute check before you publish
The safest routine is short.
- Convert, then open the result in a browser beside the editor preview and compare them.
- Click one internal link and one external link.
- Confirm every image appears, rather than showing an empty frame.
- Scroll the widest table to be sure the page is not clipping it.
- Shrink the window to phone width, because a table that fits your monitor may not fit a reader's.
If something converted oddly, the complete Markdown guide shows the expected output for every element, and Markdown vs HTML explains when writing the tag yourself is the better call. Need a document rather than a web page? Converting Markdown to PDF starts from the same preview pane.
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