Markdown Converter
FileFlip converts Markdown files into 61 other formats entirely inside your browser, using Pandoc, MuPDF and ImageMagick compiled to WebAssembly. The Markdown file is never uploaded to a server: it is read off your disk, converted on your own machine, and saved back by the browser. There is no file-size limit and no account to create.
How do I convert an Markdown file?#
- Drop your Markdown file onto the converter at the top of this page, or click it to pick one from your computer.
- Choose the format you want out of it. FileFlip downloads the engine that conversion needs, once, and your browser caches it.
- Conversion starts the moment you pick the format, and the result is yours to download. The work happens in this tab, so nothing is uploaded and nothing is queued.
Is it safe to convert Markdown files online?#
Yes, because nothing is uploaded. FileFlip converts Markdown files inside the browser tab you already have open, using WebAssembly builds of the same engines a desktop converter would install. Your file is read from your own disk into the page's memory, and no request carrying it is ever made.
You do not have to take that on trust. Open your browser's network panel, run a conversion, and you will see the engine come down and your file go nowhere. There is no upload, no server-side copy, no retention window, and no account tied to what you converted.
How FileFlip works lists every engine, its version and its download size, and shows how to check for yourself that nothing leaves your machine.
What happens to a Markdown file#
FileFlip converts Markdown into 61 formats with Pandoc, MuPDF and ImageMagick, all of it inside the browser tab. Each conversion below names the engine it uses, what it downloads, and exactly what that conversion keeps or drops.
| Category | Documents |
|---|---|
| File extension | .md |
| FileFlip support | Read and written |
| Conversions available | 61 |
| Engines | Pandoc, MuPDF and ImageMagick |
| Downloaded to your browser | 65.8 MB on the first conversion, then cached |
What is an Markdown file?#
An MD file holds Markdown, John Gruber's 2004 plain-text markup that uses light punctuation such as # and * for structure and converts to HTML, while still reading cleanly as unformatted text on its own.
Write in Markdown when the document is prose with light structure that will be read as either rendered HTML or plain text, like a README or a blog post.
Convert Markdown to a heavier format when the document needs something Markdown was never designed for, such as page layout, citations, or a footnote style a specific target requires.
The Markdown file format reference covers the specification, the programs that open one, and what each conversion keeps or drops.
Markdown questions people ask#
Who invented Markdown and why?
John Gruber created Markdown in 2004 as a text-to-HTML tool for web writers, with Aaron Swartz acting as an early sounding board. The goal was a plain-text syntax that stayed readable even before conversion, so a Markdown file never looks like it's covered in tags the way raw HTML does.
Why do Markdown tables look broken when I paste them somewhere else?
Tables were never part of Markdown's original 2004 specification, so every tool that added them, GitHub Flavored Markdown, MultiMarkdown, Pandoc, invented its own pipe-and-dash syntax independently. A table written for one renderer often shows up as literal text or breaks its alignment in another.
What is CommonMark and how is it different from Markdown?
CommonMark is a 2014 specification, backed by John MacFarlane of Pandoc along with engineers from GitHub, Reddit and Stack Overflow, that defines Markdown's grammar unambiguously with a full test suite. It exists because Gruber's original description left enough edge cases undefined that independent Markdown parsers had drifted apart; CommonMark is the fix, not a replacement syntax.
Does Markdown support footnotes?
Plain Markdown and CommonMark have no footnote syntax at all. MultiMarkdown and PHP Markdown Extra both added one, and Pandoc's Markdown follows a similar convention, but GitHub Flavored Markdown's own specification does not define footnotes, so a footnote written for one of those dialects can silently fail to render in another.
Why does GitHub render my Markdown differently than another tool?
GitHub uses GitHub Flavored Markdown, which adds tables, strikethrough, task lists and automatic link detection on top of CommonMark. A file relying on those extensions, or on a different dialect's footnotes or raw HTML handling, can render correctly on GitHub and differently, or not at all, in an editor or site generator using a different Markdown implementation.