XML to Markdown converter

What a XML actually stores

XML pays for every tag twice — once opening and once closing — which makes it among the most token-expensive ways to hand a model structured data. The information survives conversion; the overhead does not.

Configuration files, feeds, sitemaps, SOAP responses and a great deal of enterprise data are still XML, and reading one is much easier for a model without the closing tags competing for its attention. The saving is real rather than cosmetic: in a document with short values and long element names - which is most configuration - the tags can account for more characters than the data does, so you are paying twice over for information the model then has to look past. Converting first turns the same content into headings and labelled lists, which is both cheaper and closer to how the model was trained to read structure.

What survives the conversion

The element tree as nested headings, attributes as labelled lists, and all text content in document order.

What does not

Namespaces are shown as part of element names rather than resolved. Processing instructions, comments and DTDs are dropped. Malformed XML is rejected outright with a message rather than half-parsed into something misleading.

Saying so plainly is deliberate. A converter that quietly drops half a document is worse than one that tells you which half, because you can work around a limit you know about.

Questions

What if my XML is invalid?

You are told it is not well-formed rather than given a partial parse, because a partial parse of structured data is worse than none.

Are attributes kept?

Yes, as a labelled list under the element they belong to, so the association is preserved.

Is this good for RSS feeds?

It works, though a feed reader export is usually easier to work with. The conversion itself is the same.

Converting a different format

The same engine handles eighteen formats in total, all of them in your browser.

Token rates checked 2026-08-31. See the cost on all 35 models →