Markdown to Plain Text

Stripping is not the same as rendering

Rendering Markdown produces HTML. Stripping it produces plain text with the syntax characters removed and the content preserved. The difference matters for the common cases: pasting into a plain-text email, filling a CMS field that does not accept formatting, or getting a word count that is not inflated by asterisks and brackets.

Links need a decision

A Markdown link carries two pieces of information: the text and the URL. Plain text can keep one, both or neither. Keeping only the text reads naturally and loses the destination. Keeping both, usually as text followed by the URL in parentheses, preserves information and reads awkwardly. Dropping both loses the most. Which is right depends entirely on whether the reader can act on a URL, so choose per use rather than accepting a default.

Structure disappears, so replace it

Headings, blockquotes and lists carry meaning through their markup. Simply deleting the markers turns a structured document into an undifferentiated wall of text. Better output keeps list items on separate lines with a bullet character, leaves blank lines around former headings, and indents former blockquotes, so the shape survives even though the syntax does not.

Code blocks are the exception

Content inside fenced code blocks is literal and must not be touched. An asterisk inside a code sample is part of the code, not emphasis. A stripper that processes code block contents corrupts exactly the material people are most likely to be copying.

Word counts change

This is usually the point. A document full of links, emphasis and headings can show a materially higher word count before stripping than after, because the syntax characters and URLs are counted. If you are writing to a limit, count the stripped text.

Escaped characters

A backslash-escaped asterisk in Markdown means a literal asterisk. Stripping should remove the backslash and keep the character, not remove both. Getting this backwards is a small bug that shows up in technical writing constantly.

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