In short
Paste HTML, or simply paste formatted text copied from Word, Google Docs, an email or a web page — the clipboard's HTML version is read automatically and converted to clean Markdown. Headings, bold and italic, links, nested lists, blockquotes, code blocks and tables are all preserved, while the nested spans and inline styles that Word and Docs produce are stripped out.
| Input | Pasted rich text, pasted HTML, or an uploaded .html file |
|---|---|
| Rich paste | Reads text/html from the clipboard, so copying from Word or Docs works directly |
| Preserved | Headings, bold, italic, strikethrough, links, images, nested lists, task lists, blockquotes, code blocks, tables |
| Stripped | Scripts, styles, comments, empty spans, inline formatting with no Markdown equivalent |
| Output style | ATX headings, - bullets, fenced code blocks, GFM tables |
| Privacy | Converted in the browser; nothing is uploaded |
You don't need to find the HTML
When you copy formatted text, the clipboard carries an HTML version alongside the plain text. Paste into the box above and that HTML version is used, so copying a few paragraphs from Word, Google Docs, an email or a web page gives you Markdown directly. You never have to open developer tools or view source.
This is the quickest way to move existing writing into Obsidian, Notion, a static site generator, a README, or into a prompt where clean Markdown makes for better input than a wall of HTML tags.
What survives the conversion
Headings become # levels, bold and italic become ** and *, links keep their URLs, lists keep their nesting and numbering, blockquotes become >, and code blocks become fenced blocks. Tables become GitHub Flavored Markdown pipe tables, and strikethrough and task lists are preserved.
The messy-HTML problem
HTML from Word and Google Docs is full of nested spans, inline styles, comments and empty tags. Those are stripped, along with scripts, styles and metadata, so the Markdown reflects the structure rather than the exporter's quirks. Deliberate line breaks are kept as Markdown hard breaks.
What can't convert cleanly
Markdown has no equivalent for coloured text, fonts, columns, text boxes or nested tables, so that formatting is dropped rather than approximated — which is the honest outcome, since a fake equivalent would be worse than none. Images are converted as references to their original URLs; images pasted as embedded data are kept as data URLs and can be very long.
The reverse trip
Going the other way is on the Markdown to HTML page, and if you want the finished document rather than the markup, use Markdown to Word or Markdown to PDF.