Rich Text to Markdown Converter

Paste formatted text from Google Docs, Microsoft Word, or any rich text application. Get clean, readable Markdown output instantly.

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How to Use

1. Paste Your Formatted Text — Open Google Docs, Word, or any document. Select the text you want to convert (Ctrl+A to select all). Copy it (Ctrl+C). Then click the white input area below and paste (Ctrl+V). The formatting will appear visually — bold stays bold, headings stay headings.
2. View the Markdown — The Markdown tab instantly shows your clean Markdown output. All Word/Docs junk formatting is stripped. Headings, bold, italic, links, lists, tables, and code blocks are properly converted to Markdown syntax. The Source HTML tab shows the raw HTML that was pasted.
3. Copy or Download — Click Copy Markdown to copy the output, or Download .md to save as a Markdown file. Use the Clear button to reset and paste new content.

About Rich Text to Markdown

WritePadPro's Rich Text to Markdown converter solves a common problem for writers, developers, and content creators: you have a beautifully formatted document in Google Docs, Microsoft Word, or another rich text application, and you need it in Markdown format. Instead of manually rewriting the formatting with asterisks, hashes, and brackets, this tool converts it instantly.

The Paste-and-Convert Workflow

The tool uses a contenteditable input area that accepts rich text paste from any application. When you copy text from Google Docs or Word and paste it here, the browser transfers the HTML representation of your formatted content. The converter then parses this HTML using the browser's native DOMParser API and recursively converts each element to its Markdown equivalent.

Handling Word's Notorious HTML

Microsoft Word is infamous for generating bloated, messy HTML. A simple paragraph with bold text can produce dozens of unnecessary XML namespaces, proprietary tags like <o:p> and <w:sdt>, excessive inline styles, and deeply nested wrapper elements. This converter handles all of it by:

• Ignoring proprietary tags — Word-specific XML elements are traversed for content but their wrapper tags are discarded
• Reading inline styles — When Word uses <span style="font-weight:bold"> instead of <strong>, the converter detects the bold styling and produces correct Markdown
• Stripping empty elements — Word often inserts empty spans, divs, and paragraphs that serve no purpose in Markdown
• Collapsing whitespace — Excessive whitespace from Word's formatting is normalized to clean Markdown spacing

What Gets Converted

The converter transforms these HTML elements to Markdown: headings (h1-h6 to # through ######), bold/italic/strikethrough to ** and * and ~~, links to [text](url), images to , code to backticks, code blocks to fenced blocks with language detection, blockquotes to > prefix, ordered and unordered lists, task lists with checkbox state, tables with header and alignment, and horizontal rules to ---. Dangerous elements (script, style, iframe, form) are completely stripped.

Google Docs Compatibility

Google Docs produces cleaner HTML than Word, but still includes custom attributes, data-* attributes, and span-based formatting instead of semantic tags. The converter handles Docs' output correctly, preserving document structure while discarding Docs-specific markup. Tables, lists, links, and formatting all convert properly from Docs paste.

Privacy Guarantee

Your pasted content is processed entirely by JavaScript running in your browser. The DOMParser API is a built-in browser feature that does not require any network access. No data leaves your device during the conversion process. This makes the tool safe for converting confidential business documents, legal text, personal writing, and any other sensitive content.