MarkdownViewer

Loading Markdown to Plain Text Converter...

Stripping Markdown Down to Plain Text

Input

Drop In Your Markdown

Paste in whatever Markdown you have, formatting and all. It understands GitHub-flavored Markdown, CommonMark, and the common variants, then peels away the syntax to leave clean plain text:

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Paste it in: copy your Markdown and drop it straight into the input editor
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Open a file: use "Upload" to bring in a .md, .markdown, or .txt file
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Load the sample: hit "Sample" to watch a mix of Markdown elements get flattened

Example: Formatted Markdown Going In

Here's a snippet packed with formatting:

# Welcome to **Markdown**

This is a **bold text** and *italic text*.

- List item with **bold**
- Another with `code`

[Click here](https://example.com) for more info.

> This is a quote
Conversion

The Formatting Falls Away

Every bit of Markdown syntax gets cleared out on its own, while the words themselves stay put:

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Emphasis marks: the symbols around bold (**text**), italic (*text*), and strikethrough (~~text~~) are dropped
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Links & images: the URLs go, while the readable link text and image alt text stay
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Structure: heading hashes (###), list bullets, and blockquote arrows are cleared
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Code & tables: code fences, inline backticks, and table pipes are all taken out
Output

Take the Clean Text

Your plain text is ready to grab, and a few handy counts sit right alongside it:

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Live counts: word, character, and line totals update as the text changes
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One-click copy: send it to the clipboard and paste it wherever you need
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Save it out: download the result as a .txt file to keep for later

Example: The Plain Text Coming Out

Here's that same snippet once the formatting is gone:

Welcome to Markdown

This is a bold text and italic text.

List item with bold
Another with code

Click here for more info.

This is a quote

A Quick Map of What Stays and What Goes

Not sure whether a particular piece of your document survives the trip? Here's the short version, split into the syntax that gets peeled off and the wording that carries through untouched.

Cleared out

  • −Heading hashes, bullet dots, and numbered-list prefixes
  • −Bold, italic, and strikethrough symbols wrapped around words
  • −The URL half of every link, plus blockquote arrows and horizontal rules
  • −Backticks, fenced-block borders, and the pipes and dashes that draw tables

Kept intact

  • +The readable words inside headings, lists, and quotes
  • +The clickable label of a link, so it still reads as a sentence
  • +Image alt text, which stays in place as ordinary words
  • +Paragraph breaks, so the flow of your writing survives the cleanup

Good to Know

Does the alt text on my images survive, or vanish with the image?

The alt text stays. An image written as ![a sunset over the bay](sunset.png) loses the exclamation mark, the parentheses, and the file path, but the description "a sunset over the bay" remains as plain words. That's handy when the pictures themselves can't come along, since you keep a sentence describing each one instead of a broken reference.

Will my line breaks and paragraph spacing hold together?

Yes. The blank lines that separate one paragraph from the next are respected, so the output reads with the same rhythm as your source rather than collapsing into one dense wall of text. Only the formatting symbols disappear; the shape of the writing stays recognisable.

Is the result good for word counts or dropping into an AI prompt?

It's a great fit for both. Stripping the syntax first gives you an honest word count, since stray hashes and asterisks no longer inflate the total, and the live tally sits right beside the output. It's also cleaner to paste into a chat prompt: the model reads your actual sentences without wading through markup, and you spend fewer tokens on characters that carry no meaning.

Do my links turn into plain words, or disappear entirely?

They turn into words. The visible label is what you keep, while the address in brackets is dropped, so [Click here](https://example.com) reads simply as "Click here". Nothing is deleted outright; you just lose the machinery around the phrase. If you later need the markup back, the Markdown viewer shows how the original renders.

How do tables and code snippets come out the other side?

A table loses its pipes and alignment dashes, so each row settles into a single readable line of cell text. Inline code sheds its backticks and keeps the snippet, while the borders of a fenced block are removed. Need the reverse trip? The CSV to Markdown table tool rebuilds tabular data into Markdown.

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