Markdown to Plain Text Converter
Convert markdown to plain text online. Remove markdown syntax, clean pasted text and strip formatting from AI output in one click. Free, no signup.
Weekly summary Here's what changed this week — the short version: - 🚀 Shipped the new search index (see the design doc (https://example.com/search-design)) - ✅ Closed 14 bugs, including the “empty cart” crash - ⚠️ Deploy freeze starts Friday at 15:00 Metric Last week This week ----------- --------- --------- p95 latency 410 ms 280 ms Error rate 0.8% 0.3% Reminder: update your on-call contact in the directory. Next week: finish the billing migration and start the accessibility audit.
What Is a Markdown to Text Converter?
A markdown to text converter takes markdown source, or text that contains markdown symbols, and returns clean plain text with the syntax removed and the structure kept: headings become lines, bullet lists keep their bullets, links keep their destination in brackets and tables keep their columns. It is the quickest way to remove markdown from an AI answer, a README or a note before pasting it somewhere that shows asterisks and pound signs literally.
The tool renders the markdown with a real parser instead of deleting characters, so a literal asterisk in a product name survives while emphasis markers are removed. Everything runs in the browser.
How to Remove Markdown Formatting
- Paste the markdown, or the copied output of a chatbot, into the left pane.
- Pick a preset: Plain text, Clean AI output or For email.
- Adjust the controls if needed: keep or drop link URLs, choose dash, dot or no bullets, upper-case headings, aligned or tab-separated tables.
- Tick Unwrap paragraphs when the source has hard line breaks inside paragraphs, and Remove em dashes to replace — with a comma.
- Copy the clean text or download it as a .txt file.
Options Reference
| Option | Effect |
|---|---|
| Links | [text](url) becomes text (url) or just text |
| Bullets | List items start with -, • or nothing; numbered lists keep their numbers |
| Headings | Plain line or UPPERCASE line |
| Tables | Space-aligned columns with a dashed rule, or one tab-separated row per line |
| Unwrap paragraphs | Joins soft line breaks; keeps hard breaks and lines that start with a bullet or emoji |
| Quotes | Convert “smart” quotes to "straight" or the reverse |
| Clean AI artifacts | Removes stray **, ###, horizontal rules and emoji bullets that survive rendering |
| Remove em dashes | Replaces — and – with a comma and a space |
Clean Text from AI Output
Answers copied from ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini arrive as markdown: bold labels, third-level headings on every section, emoji at the start of each bullet, curly quotes and em dashes. Pasted into an email or a form, the symbols show up literally. The Clean AI output preset renders the markdown, then removes the leftovers and straightens the quotes, giving you clean text that reads as if it had been typed. Turn on Remove em dashes if you also want the dashes gone; it is off by default because some writers keep them.
When to Use a Markdown to Text Converter
Use it whenever the destination does not render markdown: plain-text email, SMS and chat apps without formatting, form fields, CSV cells, subtitle files, terminal output and legacy CMS editors. It is also the fastest way to remove formatting from a document before counting words or checking readability. The markdown to text converter keeps the meaning of the structure while dropping the symbols, and because it runs locally it is safe for private notes and internal documents.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I remove markdown formatting from ChatGPT or Claude answers?
Paste the answer into the left pane and pick the Clean AI output preset. The markdown to text converter renders the markdown properly, then strips the artifacts a plain render leaves behind: stray ** and ### markers, horizontal rules, emoji bullets and smart quotes. Tick Remove em dashes to turn the em dash the models love into a comma.
What is the difference between the presets?
Plain text keeps line breaks, dash bullets and link URLs. Clean AI output additionally unwraps paragraphs, straightens quotes and removes leftover markdown symbols. For email unwraps paragraphs and writes tables as tab-separated rows so they paste into Gmail or Outlook without misaligned columns. Every option can still be changed after choosing a preset.
Are link URLs kept when I remove markdown?
By default a link becomes text (url) so the destination survives. Choose text only under Links to drop the URLs, which is what you want when the text is going into a document that already has the references or into a chat message that would otherwise show long addresses.
What happens to tables, code blocks and headings?
Headings become plain lines, optionally upper-cased. Tables are written either as space-aligned columns for a monospace file or as tab-separated rows for a spreadsheet or email. Code blocks keep their content and indentation with the fences removed. Blockquotes keep their text without the > markers.
Does the plain text converter upload my text?
No. The conversion runs in your browser, so pasting a private document or an AI transcript into the markdown to text converter sends nothing to a server.