Markdown is a lightweight markup language designed for writing formatted text with plain-text syntax. It was created by John Gruber in 2004 and is now used by GitHub, Stack Overflow, Reddit, Notion, and almost every developer documentation platform.
Markdown syntax quick reference
| Element | Markdown | Output |
|---|---|---|
| Heading 1 | # Heading |
<h1>Heading</h1> |
| Heading 2 | ## Heading |
<h2>Heading</h2> |
| Bold | **text** |
<strong>text</strong> |
| Italic | *text* |
<em>text</em> |
| Link | [label](url) |
<a href="url">label</a> |
| Image |  |
<img alt="alt" src="url"> |
| Code | `code` |
<code>code</code> |
| Blockquote | > text |
<blockquote> |
| Unordered list | - item |
<ul><li> |
| Ordered list | 1. item |
<ol><li> |
| Horizontal rule | --- |
<hr> |
GitHub Flavored Markdown (GFM)
GFM extends standard Markdown with additional features:
- Tables — created with
|separators - Task lists —
- [x] doneand- [ ] todo - Fenced code blocks — triple backtick with optional language name
- Strikethrough —
~~text~~ - Autolinks — bare URLs are automatically linked
Privatool's converter supports GFM by default.
When to convert Markdown to HTML
- Embedding Markdown content in a CMS that only accepts HTML
- Sending rich email content (HTML email from Markdown source)
- Generating static HTML pages from Markdown documentation
- Previewing Markdown output before publishing to a platform
- Extracting HTML from README files for embedding in websites
How to convert Markdown to HTML
- Go to Markdown to HTML
- Type or paste your Markdown in the left panel
- See the live HTML preview on the right
- Click Copy HTML to get the raw HTML source, or Download to save as
.html
Tips for clean HTML output
- Use heading levels sequentially (h1 → h2 → h3) for better semantic HTML
- Specify language in fenced code blocks (
```js) for syntax highlighting classes - Use reference-style links for long URLs to keep Markdown readable