What Is Markdown? When Do You Need to Remove It?
Learn the basics of Markdown syntax and situations where plain text conversion is necessary.
What Is Markdown?
Markdown is a lightweight markup language created by John Gruber in 2004. It's designed as an easy-to-read, easy-to-write plain text format that can be converted to HTML.
Markdown's philosophy is that 'what you read should convey meaning.' For example, **bold text** is wrapped in asterisks, and # headings start with hash symbols. Document structure can be expressed without complex tags.
Today, Markdown is the standard in GitHub, GitLab, Notion, Obsidian, and most development documentation tools. It's widely used for writing README files, technical documentation, and blog posts.
Basic Markdown Syntax
Headings use # symbols. The number of # indicates heading level. Use # Heading1, ## Heading2, ### Heading3 in order.
Text emphasis uses asterisks or underscores. *italic*, **bold**, ***bold italic***. Strikethrough uses ~~text~~.
Links use [text](URL) format, images use . Code is wrapped in backticks (`), code blocks use triple backticks (```).
When Markdown Removal Is Needed
When pasting text to platforms that don't support Markdown, syntax symbols appear as-is. In email, word processors, and some social media, Markdown doesn't render, reducing readability.
It's needed when extracting pure text from documents. For example, when using Markdown document content for text-to-speech (TTS) or text analysis, syntax symbols interfere.
When migrating content to different formats, removing Markdown syntax first before converting to the new format can be cleaner. Especially useful when moving only content without formatting from complex Markdown.
Tips for Using the Markdown Stripper
TheWebGyver's Markdown stripper accurately interprets Markdown based on the remark parser. It correctly handles complex nested structures better than simple regex-based tools.
Text within code blocks is also extracted. You can convert entire content at once without separating code and explanations from technical documents.
Preview the conversion results and copy to clipboard with a single click. All processing occurs in the browser, so document content is never sent externally.
Experience what you learned in this article with Markdown Stripper.
Markdown Stripper