Markdown to Plain Text Converter
Paste Markdown and get plain text as you type: heading marks, bold and italic markers, link addresses, list bullets, quote marks and code fences are removed while the words stay. The page counts characters and lines before and after and how many elements were stripped. Free, no sign-up, and your text never leaves your browser.
How to Use the Markdown to Text Converter
- 1. Paste your Markdown. The result updates as you type; there is no convert button.
- 2. Read the counters. Input Characters, Output Characters and Elements Stripped appear above the result, and a comparison panel gives characters and lines for both sides.
- 3. Check the plain text. Words are kept in their original order, one paragraph per block.
- 4. Copy it. Copy Output puts the plain text on your clipboard.
What Is Removed and What Stays
The tool applies pattern replacements one syntax at a time, keeping the readable text each time:
| Markdown | What remains |
|---|---|
# Heading to ###### Heading | The heading text |
**bold**, __bold__ | The bold text |
*italic*, _italic_ | The italic text (an underscore inside a word, as in snake_case, is left alone) |
~~strikethrough~~ | The struck-out text — it is kept, not deleted |
[text](address), [text][ref] | The link text; reference definitions such as [1]: http://… are deleted |
 | The alt text |
| Inline code and fenced code blocks | The code itself, without backticks or the fence lines |
> quote | The quoted line without the marker |
-, *, + and 1. list markers | The item text; numbering is dropped |
---, ***, ___ rules | Nothing; the line is emptied |
Blank lines are tidied so that no more than one separates paragraphs. Nothing else is rewritten: your wording, punctuation and line breaks stay exactly as typed.
Worked Example
Heading
# Citation Tips
Paragraph
Use **APA** or *MLA* style, and see the [APA site](https://apastyle.apa.org).
Then
The line Steps: and a blank line; bullets - First point and - Second point with code (the last word in backticks); a quote > A quote; a rule ---; and a fenced block holding let x = 1;
Plain text
Citation Tips, the paragraph as Use APA or MLA style, and see the APA site., then Steps:, a blank line, First point and Second point with code on consecutive lines, then A quote and let x = 1;.
Counters
182 input characters, 123 output characters and 10 elements stripped; the line count falls from 16 to 12.
The ten elements are the heading, the link, the bold and italic pairs, the inline code, the quote marker, two bullets, the rule and the code block.
Limits to Know About
This is a pattern-based stripper, not a full Markdown parser, so it follows the common syntax and ignores the corners of the CommonMark specification. Check these before you rely on the output:
- Tables stay as they are. Pipe tables, a GitHub Flavored Markdown extension, keep their
|characters and separator rows. - HTML is not touched. Tags such as
<b>pass straight through; run HTML Tag Remover on the result if the Markdown contains raw HTML. - Emphasis needs text between the markers. A pair of asterisks or underscores is removed only when it wraps text that starts and ends with a non-space character, so
2 * 3 * 4is left alone. Something like*a*that is not meant as emphasis would still lose its asterisks. - Setext headings, footnotes, lists numbered with a bracket and backslash escapes are left as typed.
Which Tool Do You Need?
Use this page to remove Markdown syntax and keep the words. To keep the formatting but change format, Markdown to HTML renders it. In the other direction, HTML to Markdown keeps headings, links and lists, while HTML Tag Remover goes from HTML to plain text. For a Markdown table, see the Markdown Table Generator.
Frequently Asked Questions
- What Markdown syntax does this tool remove?
- Headings, bold, italic, strikethrough, links and reference links, images, inline code, code fences, block quotes, bullet and numbered list markers, horizontal rules and link reference definitions. The text inside each is kept.
- Why would I need to convert Markdown to plain text?
- Typical reasons: pasting notes into an email client or a form that shows asterisks and hashes literally, preparing a word count or a text-to-speech script, or cleaning a README paragraph for use as a description. Plain text is also what character-limited fields expect.
- Does it keep my paragraphs and line breaks?
- Yes. Lines stay in their original order and paragraphs stay separated by a blank line; only runs of three or more newlines are reduced to one blank line.
- Can I convert Markdown with code blocks?
- Yes. Fenced blocks lose their opening and closing fence lines, including any language name, and inline code loses its backticks. The code itself is kept unchanged.
- Why were some of my asterisks or underscores removed?
- A pair of asterisks or underscores is read as emphasis when it wraps text that starts and ends with a non-space character. A spaced calculation like 2 * 3 * 4 is left alone, and so are underscores inside words, but a tight pair such as 234 is treated as italics. Rewrite such text with different symbols, or restore them after converting.
- Does it convert tables or HTML?
- No. Pipe tables and raw HTML tags are passed through unchanged. Convert HTML separately with HTML Tag Remover.
- Is my text uploaded anywhere?
- No. The conversion runs in your browser as you type, and nothing you paste is sent to CitationEasy.