How Markdown becomes HTML
Every Markdown construct maps to one HTML element. The converter here uses markdown-it, a CommonMark-compliant parser, with the same GitHub Flavored Markdown extensions GitHub applies to READMEs.
| Markdown | HTML |
|---|---|
# Title | <h1 id="title">Title</h1> |
**bold** / *italic* | <strong> / <em> |
[text](url) | <a href="url">text</a> |
 | <img src="img.png" alt="alt"> |
- item | <ul><li>item</li></ul> |
```js fenced code | <pre><code class="language-js"> |
> quote | <blockquote> |
| GFM table | <table><thead>…<tbody> with text-align from the colons |
~~gone~~ | <s>gone</s> |
When to use a fragment or a full page
Paste a fragment into WordPress (Code editor), Ghost’s HTML card, an email template or a Jinja/Handlebars layout that already has its own styles. Download a full page when you want a standalone file to email, archive or host: it includes a title and a small, readable stylesheet.
Raw HTML inside Markdown
Markdown lets you mix in HTML, for example <details> or <kbd>. That HTML passes through. With Sanitize on, anything risky like <script> or onclick is removed, which is what you want for content from other people.
Need the other direction? Use HTML to Markdown.