Why the symbols showed up before
Email and document editors do not read Markdown, so pasting it in gives you the asterisks and hashes rather than the formatting they stand for. The converter turns the Markdown into a formatted page first and puts that page on the clipboard as rich text, the format those editors take from a copy on a web page.
What comes across
| Markdown | When you paste it |
|---|---|
# headings | Headings, which Google Docs and Word file as Heading styles |
**bold**, _italic_, ~~struck~~ | Bold, italic and strikethrough |
| Lists, nested | Real bulleted and numbered lists |
| Tables | Tables with their columns and alignment |
| Links | Links you can click |
> quotes | Indented quotes |
| Code | Monospaced text on a shaded block |
Each style is written onto the text itself rather than kept in a stylesheet, because Gmail, Google Docs, Word and Notion all drop a stylesheet on paste. The copy also carries a plain text version, with the symbols already removed, for any app that takes no formatting.
Where it works best
Gmail, Outlook and Apple Mail keep almost everything. Google Docs and Word keep the structure and apply their own spacing, so check a long table once after pasting. Slack and Notion keep headings, lists and links and simplify tables. Images and diagrams are not carried by a copy; for a document full of them, Markdown to PDF or Markdown to Word keeps them in a file.
For the formatting without any of it, the Markdown to plain text converter removes the symbols and keeps the words. Copying into Google Docs has a page of its own, with the details of what Docs keeps.
Questions
How do I paste Markdown into Gmail with formatting?
Paste the Markdown into the field above, choose Copy as rich text, and paste into a new Gmail message. The headings, bold, lists, tables and links arrive formatted.
How do I convert Markdown to rich text for Google Docs?
The same way: copy it as rich text here and paste into the document. Google Docs turns the headings into its Heading styles, so the document outline works.
Is my document uploaded?
No. The formatting is done in this tab and goes straight to your clipboard. Nothing is sent to a server.