Markdown → HTML
Converting a novel from Markdown (.md) to HyperText (.html, .htm, .xhtml, .xml, .mhtml) is a routine step in practice — HTML opens in any browser and embeds easily into a web page. Fortunately Markdown and HyperText are structurally close, so there is not much to lose. Below we explain in detail how Markdown becomes HyperText and what to watch out for, and the page ends with a converter that does the job right in your browser — nothing is uploaded, the file never leaves your machine.
What is Markdown?
Markdown is plain text plus markers (# headings, ** bold, | tables) — effectively a superset of .txt. Any text editor opens it, and it versions cleanly in Git. Its expressiveness is deliberately limited: no pagination, no headers or footers, no precise control over type size or position, and no complex layouts. Those trade-offs make Markdown an excellent authoring and conversion source, but as a final reading format its experience depends entirely on which app opens it. Read the Markdown format guide
| Extensions | .md |
|---|---|
| Typical use | Authoring, notes and technical docs; a clean intermediate format before converting to EPUB or TXT. |
What is HTML?
HTML and XHTML are the structural languages of the web, and XHTML is also what EPUB uses internally to hold its content — so converting between HTML and EPUB is essentially a matter of swapping the shell and how assets are packaged. .mhtml goes further and packs a page together with its images and styles into one file, which suits preserving online pages that may disappear. HTML's strength is that it is universal and opens in any browser; its weakness is that styles and images are usually external links, so shipping one self-contained file means inlining them first. Read the HTML format guide
| Extensions | .html.htm.xhtml.xml.mhtml |
|---|---|
| Typical use | Captured web content, EPUB internal content, and a general intermediate representation for other formats. |
How to convert Markdown to HTML
Markdown is plain text carrying almost no structure beyond heading levels: no pagination, no headers or footers, no way to express precise type size or position, and limited tables and nested lists. Before converting to a layout-sensitive format, check the source does not rely on those.
Whether images and styles are linked or embedded decides if the result travels as one file. To ship a single file, inline the assets as data URIs or use MHTML; otherwise moving the file breaks the images. Keep semantic tags (h1–h6, p) so a later EPUB conversion still yields a table of contents.
The source carries no metadata at all — plain-text formats such as TXT and Markdown are the classic case — while the target expects a title and author. Converters fall back to the filename, so libraries fill up with "Untitled" or titles still carrying the .txt or .md suffix — fill them in during conversion.
Convert Markdown to HTML
MARKDOWN → HTML
The conversion runs entirely in your browser — your file is never uploaded.
A novel reader that syncs your progress across every platform
Tide Reader opens TXT and EPUB, detects chapters on import, lays the text out the way you like it, and syncs your reading position across Windows, macOS, iOS and Android. Drop the converted file in and start reading.
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