How to Convert Markdown to HTML

You drafted a post in Markdown but the blog platform only accepts HTML. You want to drop a Markdown-formatted body into an email template. You are pulling Markdown content into a CMS WYSIWYG editor. All of these scenarios end at the same step: converting Markdown into HTML.

Pandoc or a build script can do this locally, but typing a command for every quick paste gets tedious, and many people would rather not paste internal drafts into a third-party online tool. This guide covers the relationship between Markdown and HTML, when the conversion shows up in practice, and how to do it directly in the browser.

How Markdown and HTML relate

Markdown is a lightweight markup language that prioritizes human readability while still expressing structure. HTML is the format browsers actually render, with tags wrapping each piece of content. The two map cleanly onto each other. This Markdown:

# Heading

This is a paragraph with **bold** and _italic_.

- Item 1
- Item 2

becomes this HTML:

<h1>Heading</h1>
<p>This is a paragraph with <strong>bold</strong> and <em>italic</em>.</p>
<ul>
  <li>Item 1</li>
  <li>Item 2</li>
</ul>

Markdown was designed with HTML output in mind, and the syntax-to-tag mapping is largely one-to-one.

When the conversion comes up

Blog and CMS platforms without Markdown support

WordPress's classic editor, several legacy CMSes, and many in-house publishing tools still expect HTML directly. Drafting in Markdown and converting on the way in is faster than fighting a WYSIWYG editor for layout consistency.

HTML email

Newsletter platforms accept HTML bodies. Writing the source in Markdown keeps the draft readable while still letting you ship final HTML into a template.

Static sites and docs pipelines

Some static site generators or documentation tools do not parse Markdown directly and expect pre-rendered HTML as part of the build step.

Convert with FormatArc

Markdown to HTML takes pasted Markdown and produces HTML. There is nothing to install.

Step 1: Open the tool

Go to Markdown to HTML.

Step 2: Paste your Markdown

Paste the Markdown source into the left pane. Headings, lists, links, images, fenced code blocks, and the rest of the common syntax are supported.

Step 3: Hit Run

Press Run and the HTML appears in the right pane.

GitHub Flavored Markdown is enabled, so pipe tables (| col1 | col2 |) and task list checkboxes (- [x]) are converted to the corresponding HTML elements.

The conversion runs entirely in the browser. Unpublished drafts and internal documents stay on your machine.

Supported syntax

The main GFM features are covered:

• Headings (# through ######)
• Paragraphs and line breaks
• Emphasis (**bold**, _italic_, ~~strikethrough~~)
• Ordered and unordered lists
• Task lists (- [ ], - [x])
• Links and images
• Inline code and fenced code blocks
• Tables
• Blockquotes
• Horizontal rules

Math notation (KaTeX, MathJax) is not supported.

Things to watch when using the output

Sanitize untrusted input separately

Markdown allows raw HTML, which means any <script> tags in the source pass straight through to the output. If you are converting your own writing this is fine. If you are converting input from users or any untrusted source, run the result through DOMPurify or a similar sanitizer before rendering it.

No styling included

The output is structural HTML only. CSS is not added. The expectation is that wherever you paste it — a blog, a CMS, an email template — provides the visual styles.

Syntax highlighting in code blocks

Specifying a language with ```js adds class="language-js" to the rendered <code> element, but actual syntax highlighting requires loading something like Prism.js or highlight.js on the page that renders it.

Wrapping up

Converting Markdown to HTML is something every Markdown user runs into eventually. For one-off conversions, a browser tool like Markdown to HTML is faster than installing and remembering a CLI.

For the reverse direction, see HTML to Markdown. To turn CSV into a Markdown table, see the CSV to Markdown guide.