A specification headed for a repository
Convert, then read through the headings. Anything the author formatted by hand rather than with a heading style will come through as an ordinary paragraph, which is worth fixing at the source.
Use DOCX to Markdown
Reads a Word document in this tab and writes it out as Markdown, keeping headings, lists, quotes, tables and emphasis.
Structure survives, layout does notHeadings, lists, tables and emphasis are recorded semantically by Word, so they come through. Page geometry, columns, text boxes and positioned images are layout instructions rather than content, and reproducing them would need a layout engine.
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Browse all developer and data toolsAbout DOCX to Markdown
Word documents arrive constantly in places where Markdown is the working format: a colleague sends a specification that belongs in the repository, a client supplies copy that has to become a web page, a policy written in Word needs to live in a wiki. Copying and pasting loses the structure and leaves invisible formatting behind; retyping wastes an afternoon. This converter reads the document properly instead. A .docx is a ZIP archive of XML, and Word records structure semantically rather than visually, which means headings really are marked as headings and lists really are marked as lists. That structure is recoverable exactly. What is not recoverable is layout, and being clear about the difference is what separates a converter you can trust from one that produces something you have to check line by line.
Work through the input
- The document is unpacked in this tab. Both the ZIP container and the XML inside it are handled here, so no document library needs downloading before you can convert.
- Headings are identified from Word's own style definitions, so a paragraph styled Heading 2 becomes a level-two Markdown heading rather than being guessed at from its font size.
- Lists are recognised whether Word attached the numbering to the paragraph or to a style such as List Bullet, and nesting depth is preserved. Numbered and bulleted lists are told apart from the document's numbering definitions.
- Bold and italic are read from each run, and adjacent runs with identical formatting are merged first. Word splits sentences into runs for its own reasons, and marking each separately would produce broken markers in the middle of words.
- Tables become Markdown tables with a header row and separator, and block quotes become quoted lines. Only characters that would change meaning are escaped, so ordinary punctuation stays readable.
When docx to markdown is useful
Client copy for a website
The structure and emphasis survive, which is usually all that is wanted. Check for images, since those need collecting separately.
Check the output
- Layout does not convert, because Markdown has no way to express it. Columns, text boxes, page breaks, headers and footers, and exact spacing are all instructions about a printed page rather than about content.
- Images are not extracted. Markdown references an image by path, and there is nowhere to put the file, so illustrations are omitted rather than linked to something that does not exist.
- Tracked changes and comments are ignored. The document converts as it currently reads, with revisions neither applied nor annotated.
- Complex tables lose merged cells. Markdown tables are strictly rectangular, so a cell spanning two columns becomes an ordinary cell.
- Older .doc files from before 2007 use a completely different binary format and are refused with a message saying so. Open one in a word processor and save it as .docx first.
Questions about DOCX to Markdown
Do headings really come through?
Yes, provided they were styled as headings in Word. Text made large and bold by hand looks like a heading to a reader but is an ordinary paragraph to the file, so it converts as one.
What happens to images?
They are omitted. Markdown links to an image file by path, and since there is nowhere to save one, inserting a broken reference would be worse than leaving it out.
Are tables supported?
Yes, as Markdown tables. Merged cells flatten, because a Markdown table has to be rectangular.
Why is my punctuation not escaped?
Deliberately. Escaping every reserved character turns a full stop into an ugly backslash sequence. Only the characters that would actually render as formatting are escaped.
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