Converting Between HTML and Markdown Formats

HTML and Markdown are two fundamentally different ways to write formatted text. HTML is the markup language of the web — powerful, verbose, and capable of expressing any visual layout. Markdown is a lightweight syntax designed for readability — simple, fast to write, and easy to learn. Knowing when to use each format and how to convert between them is a practical skill for anyone who publishes content online.

When to Use HTML

HTML is the right choice when you need:

• Full layout control. Columns, grids, custom spacing, and nested structures require HTML (and usually CSS alongside it).
• Interactive elements. Forms, buttons, embedded media, and dynamic content live in HTML.
• Email templates. HTML email is the standard, and Markdown is not supported by email clients.
• Existing web pages. If your content is already on a website, it’s in HTML.

HTML gives you access to every element the browser can render, but the tradeoff is verbosity. A simple bold word in HTML (<strong>text</strong>) takes 25 characters. In Markdown (**text**), it takes 10.

When to Use Markdown

Markdown is the better choice when you need:

• Fast content authoring. Writing Markdown is nearly as fast as writing plain text. There are no angle brackets, no closing tags, and no attributes to remember.
• Readable source files. A Markdown file is easy to read even without rendering. An HTML file full of tags isn’t.
• Documentation and READMEs. Platforms like GitHub, GitLab, and Bitbucket render Markdown natively.
• Blog posts and articles. Most static site generators and content management systems accept Markdown input.
• Notes and knowledge bases. Tools like Obsidian, Notion, and Bear use Markdown or Markdown-like syntax.

Markdown was created by John Gruber in 2004 with the explicit goal of being “as easy to read as possible” in plain text form. It succeeds at this — a Markdown file with headings, lists, and links is immediately understandable without any rendering.

Converting HTML to Markdown

Converting from HTML to Markdown means translating verbose markup into clean, readable syntax. Here’s how common elements map:

Headings

<h1>Main Title</h1>
<h2>Section Title</h2>
<h3>Subsection</h3>

Becomes:

# Main Title
## Section Title
### Subsection

Paragraphs

HTML paragraphs wrapped in <p> tags become plain text separated by blank lines in Markdown. No special syntax needed.

Bold and Italic

<strong>bold text</strong>
<em>italic text</em>
<strong><em>bold italic</em></strong>

Becomes:

**bold text**
*italic text*
***bold italic***

Links

<a href="https://example.com">Visit Example</a>

Becomes:

[Visit Example](https://example.com)

Images

<img src="photo.jpg" alt="A sunset over mountains">

Becomes:

![A sunset over mountains](photo.jpg)

Lists

Unordered and ordered lists translate directly:

<ul>
  <li>First item</li>
  <li>Second item</li>
</ul>

<ol>
  <li>Step one</li>
  <li>Step two</li>
</ol>

Becomes:

- First item
- Second item

1. Step one
2. Step two

Code Blocks

<pre><code>function hello() {
  return "world";
}</code></pre>

Becomes:

```
function hello() {
  return "world";
}
```

Converting Markdown to HTML

The reverse conversion — Markdown to HTML — is what happens every time a Markdown file is rendered for display. Each Markdown element maps to specific HTML tags.

This conversion is well-defined and generally lossless. Markdown was designed with HTML output in mind, so every Markdown construct has a clear HTML equivalent. You can convert Markdown to HTML with confidence that the output will render correctly.

Use our Markdown to HTML converter for quick conversions, or our HTML to Markdown tool for the reverse.

Common Conversion Pitfalls

Tables

Markdown tables are limited to simple structures — uniform columns and rows with no merged cells, no column spans, and no complex alignment. If your HTML contains tables with colspan, rowspan, or nested tables, the Markdown equivalent will either lose that structure or require embedding raw HTML.

Simple HTML table:

<table>
  <tr><th>Name</th><th>Score</th></tr>
  <tr><td>Alice</td><td>95</td></tr>
</table>

Markdown equivalent:

| Name  | Score |
|-------|-------|
| Alice | 95    |

Inline Styles and Classes

Markdown has no concept of CSS classes or inline styles. When converting HTML to Markdown, all styling information gets lost. A red heading in HTML becomes a plain heading in Markdown. If you need styled content, either keep it as HTML or apply styles at the rendering layer after converting from Markdown.

Nested or Complex Structures

Markdown doesn’t handle deeply nested lists well (more than three levels becomes unreliable across parsers). Multi-column layouts, definition lists (in standard Markdown), and custom block structures have no Markdown equivalent.

When you encounter these structures during conversion, you have two options:

1. Simplify the structure to fit Markdown’s capabilities
2. Embed raw HTML within the Markdown file (most Markdown parsers will pass HTML through untouched)

HTML Entities

Characters like &, <, and   need to be decoded back to their actual characters during conversion. A good converter handles this automatically, but manual conversion often misses these.

Line Breaks vs. Paragraphs

In HTML, <br> creates a line break within a paragraph, while <p> tags create separate paragraphs. Markdown uses two trailing spaces or a backslash for line breaks and blank lines for paragraph separation. Getting this distinction right during conversion affects how the text flows.

Migration Scenarios

Blog Migration to a Static Site Generator

Moving a WordPress or HTML-based blog to a static site generator (Hugo, Astro, Jekyll, Eleventy) typically requires converting all posts from HTML to Markdown. The workflow:

1. Export your HTML content
2. Convert each post to Markdown using a batch conversion tool
3. Add frontmatter (title, date, tags) to each Markdown file
4. Review and fix any conversion artifacts
5. Place files in your static site generator’s content directory

Documentation Consolidation

Teams with documentation scattered across wikis, Google Docs, and HTML pages often consolidate into a Markdown-based system. Converting everything to Markdown creates a consistent, version-controllable content format that works with tools like MkDocs, Docusaurus, or simple Git repositories.

CMS Content Updates

When updating website content managed through a CMS, working in Markdown is often faster. Write in Markdown, convert to HTML, and paste into the CMS editor’s HTML view. This avoids the quirks of WYSIWYG editors that inject unnecessary <span> tags and inline styles.

Markdown Flavors to Be Aware Of

Not all Markdown is the same. Several extended versions exist:

• CommonMark: A strict specification aiming to standardize Markdown. Most modern parsers follow this.
• GitHub Flavored Markdown (GFM): Adds tables, task lists, strikethrough, and auto-linked URLs. Used on GitHub.
• MultiMarkdown: Adds footnotes, citations, math notation, and metadata.
• Markdown Extra: Adds definition lists, abbreviations, and fenced code blocks.

When converting HTML to Markdown, the target flavor matters. A table converts cleanly to GFM but has no equivalent in basic Markdown. Choose your target flavor before starting the conversion.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I mix HTML and Markdown in the same file?

Yes. Most Markdown parsers allow raw HTML inside Markdown files. You can write most of your content in Markdown and drop into HTML for elements Markdown can’t express, like a complex table or an embedded video. The HTML will be passed through to the output unchanged. However, Markdown formatting doesn’t work inside HTML block elements — once you open an HTML tag, you must write HTML until that block closes.

Does converting HTML to Markdown lose any information?

It can. Markdown can’t represent CSS classes, inline styles, custom attributes, or certain structural elements like column spans in tables. Purely semantic content (text, headings, lists, links, images, emphasis) converts without loss. Visual formatting and layout information will be stripped. If preserving exact visual appearance is critical, keep the content in HTML.

What is the best way to handle images during conversion?

Image tags convert to Markdown image syntax (![alt](src)) cleanly, but the image files themselves need to be moved separately. During a migration, create a consistent image directory structure, update all image paths in your Markdown files, and verify that every image loads correctly after the move. Broken image links are the most common post-migration issue.

Should I store content as HTML or Markdown?

Store as Markdown when the content is primarily text-based (articles, documentation, blog posts). Markdown files are smaller, more readable in source form, and version control diffs are clear and meaningful. Store as HTML when the content requires complex layouts, interactive elements, or precise visual control that Markdown can’t express.

How do I handle special characters in conversions?

Characters like angle brackets (<, >), ampersands (&), and pipe characters (|) have special meaning in both HTML and Markdown. Good conversion tools handle escaping automatically. When converting manually, replace HTML entities with their literal characters and escape any Markdown-special characters that should be displayed literally (prefix them with a backslash: \*, \|, \#).