Textile to ICML Converter
FileFlip converts Textile to ICML entirely inside your browser, using Pandoc compiled to WebAssembly. The file is never uploaded to a server: it is read off your disk, converted on your own machine, and saved back by the browser. That means no file-size limit, no queue and no account.
How do I convert a Textile file to ICML?#
- Drop your Textile file onto the converter at the top of this page, or click it to pick one from your computer. You can add as many as you like.
- Leave the target set to ICML and the conversion starts on its own. FileFlip downloads 65.8 MB of WebAssembly the first time and nothing after that, then runs Pandoc on your own machine.
- Save the ICML file. Your browser writes it straight to your downloads folder, because there was never a server holding it.
Does converting Textile to ICML lose quality?#
Not in the sense of pixels or samples. Converting Textile to ICML rebuilds the file in ICML's own model rather than re-encoding it, so everything ICML can represent comes through exactly and anything it cannot has to be dropped. Expect the words to come through exactly and the page breaks to move.
Is it safe to convert Textile files online?#
Yes, because nothing is uploaded. FileFlip converts Textile 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 Textile to ICML actually does to the file#
Converting Textile to ICML runs on Pandoc, downloads 65.8 MB of WebAssembly the first time and nothing after that, rebuilds the file in the target's own model, keeps selectable text and page layout.
| Engine | Pandoc |
|---|---|
| Conversion path | One step: Textile → ICML |
| Downloaded to your browser | 65.8 MB, once, then cached by your browser |
| Quality | Rebuilt in the target's model |
| You get back | One file |
| Where it runs | In a background worker, so the page stays responsive |
What survives the conversion
| What is in the file | This conversion | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Selectable text | Kept | Carried through into the converted file. |
| Page layout | Kept | Carried through into the converted file. |
What is a Textile file?#
A TEXTILE file holds Textile markup, Dean Allen's 2002 lightweight syntax for the Textpattern content management system, using punctuation like *bold*, _italic_ and bq. for a blockquote to generate HTML.
Use Textile when working inside a system that already expects it, such as a Redmine wiki or a long-running Textpattern site.
Convert Textile to Markdown when moving content to a modern platform, since almost everything built in the last decade expects Markdown instead.
What is an ICML file?#
An ICML file is a single XML document holding one InDesign story's text and its paragraph and character style names, with no page geometry, meant to be opened in Adobe InCopy or imported into an existing InDesign layout rather than viewed on its own.
Use ICML to move styled text into an InDesign layout from a source that can generate structured XML, keeping paragraph and character styles intact instead of retyping the copy.
Convert content out of ICML once it leaves the InDesign workflow, since almost nothing outside Adobe's own applications reads it.
Textile to ICML questions people ask#
What is a Textile file used for?
A Textile file holds plain text written in Textile markup, a lightweight syntax from the early blogging era that's still the default markup in Redmine's wikis and issue tracker. Textile source is written to be converted to HTML, either by Textpattern, Redmine or a standalone library like RedCloth.
Is Textile the same as Markdown?
No. Textile and Markdown are separate lightweight markup languages created around the same time, and their syntax differs throughout, Textile uses codes like h1. for a heading and bq. for a blockquote, where Markdown uses # and >. A file written in one isn't valid in the other.
What software still uses Textile?
Redmine uses Textile as its default wiki and issue-description markup, and it appears in some older installs of Basecamp Classic, Jira and other systems that adopted it during the mid-2000s. Most newer platforms have since standardized on Markdown instead.
What application opens an ICML file?
Adobe InDesign and Adobe InCopy are effectively the only applications that open ICML files, since the format exists specifically to move a story's styled text between the two. There is no independent viewer for it outside Adobe's publishing tools.