Why does pasting into an AI chat lose my formatting?

Most chat boxes only accept plain text, so links, bold text, and headings get flattened when you paste directly. This tool captures the rich-text version of what you copied and converts it to Markdown first, so an AI model can still see the structure.

Does this work with Google Docs, Word, and Notion?

Yes. All three copy a rich-text (HTML) version of your selection to the clipboard alongside the plain text, which is what this tool reads. Formatting like bold, links, headings, and tables carries over to the Markdown output.

What happens to images when I paste?

By default, images are replaced with a text placeholder like "[Image: description]" so they do not bloat an AI prompt with embedded image data. Turn off "Strip images" to keep them as standard Markdown image syntax instead.

Is my clipboard content uploaded anywhere?

No. Reading and converting the pasted content happens entirely in your browser. Nothing you paste here is sent to a server.

How is this different from the HTML to Markdown converter?

The HTML to Markdown tool expects you to paste raw HTML source code. This tool is for pasting rich text you copied normally (Ctrl+V) from a document or webpage - no need to view source or copy HTML by hand.

Clipboard to Markdown - Paste Rich Text as Markdown

What this tool does

Pasting formatted content directly into most AI chat boxes flattens everything to plain text - links become bare words, headings lose their weight, and tables collapse into a run-on paragraph. This tool captures the rich-text version of whatever you copied (the same version your word processor would paste), shows you a preview so you can confirm nothing important was lost, and converts it to clean Markdown you can hand to an AI prompt without losing structure.

How it works

When you paste, the browser's clipboard actually carries two versions of your selection: a plain-text copy and, when the source supports it, an HTML copy that preserves formatting. This tool reads the HTML version, sanitizes it, renders it in the preview pane so you can see exactly what was captured, then walks the resulting DOM tree to produce Markdown - headings become # prefixes, bold and italic become **text** and *text*, links become [text](url), and tables become GitHub-flavored Markdown pipe tables.

Image handling

Content copied from Word, Google Docs, or Notion often embeds images as large base64 data directly in the clipboard - fine for a document, wasteful in an AI prompt. By default this tool replaces images with a short text placeholder like [Image: description] so the structure of your content stays visible without the token cost. Turn off "Strip images" if you want standard Markdown image syntax instead; if the source image data is large, the tool warns you how much it will add to the output.

When you'd use this

Pasting a formatted section of a Google Doc into an AI prompt for review or editing
Handing a webpage excerpt to an AI assistant without losing its links
Turning a Notion page or Word document into Markdown for a README or wiki
Cleaning up a copy-pasted email or Slack message before sharing it as Markdown

Clipboard to Markdown vs. HTML to Markdown

This site's HTML to Markdown converter is built for developers who already have HTML source code - copied from a browser's "View Source," an exported CMS page, or written by hand. This tool is for the more common case: you copied something normally (Ctrl+V) from a document or webpage and want the Markdown equivalent without ever looking at HTML. Both tools share the same underlying conversion engine, so the Markdown output quality is identical for the same content.