TXT → Markdown
Converting a novel from Plain text (.txt) to Markdown (.md) is a routine step in practice — Markdown is plain text, so any editor opens it and it versions cleanly. Fortunately Plain text and Markdown are structurally close, so there is not much to lose. Below we explain in detail how Plain text becomes Markdown 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 TXT?
TXT is plain text: nothing but characters and line breaks, with no presentation information at all. That makes it the smallest and most compatible option — from the most basic feature phone to any operating system, there is almost no software that cannot open it. Most Chinese web novels circulate as TXT, and it is the easiest format to copy, search, batch-process and convert further. The cost is that it stores no images, colours, tables or table of contents, and there is nowhere to keep the title and author, so it behaves more like a clean body of text than a complete book. Read the TXT format guide
| Extensions | .txt |
|---|---|
| Typical use | Chinese web novels, logs, and any text-only content that needs maximum compatibility. |
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. |
How to convert TXT to Markdown
TXT carries no chapter markers — a heading is just a line that looks like one. Before converting, confirm the text has been split correctly (a regex matching chapter patterns), otherwise the whole book becomes one un-navigable block inside EPUB or Kindle.
Markdown output keeps text and only the most basic hierarchy (# headings, paragraphs, simple lists). Pagination, headers and footers, comments, tracked changes, precise type sizes and text wrapping are all gone — it is a content archive, not a layout archive.
The source contains no images, so the result has no cover or illustrations. EPUB/Kindle library views then show a blank placeholder — add a cover manually afterwards or the title is unrecognisable on a shelf.
Any conversion touching TXT must settle encoding: Chinese TXT files are commonly UTF-8, GBK, GB18030 or BIG5, with or without a BOM. Write UTF-8 without BOM for best compatibility, or GBK for legacy devices. A wrong choice shows up as wholesale mojibake, not as an error.
Convert TXT to Markdown
TXT → MARKDOWN
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.
Download Tide ReaderTXT and EPUB; local-first reading, with optional cloud sync and WebDAV.