What becomes what
The file uses Word's own styles rather than formatting each line by hand, so it behaves like a document somebody made in Word:
| Markdown | In the Word document |
|---|---|
# to ###### headings | Heading 1 to Heading 6, listed in the navigation pane |
**bold**, _italic_, ~~struck~~ | Bold, italic and strikethrough |
- and 1. lists, nested | Real Word lists that keep numbering as you edit |
- [x] task lists | Checked and unchecked boxes |
| Tables, with alignment | Word tables with a repeating header row |
| Fenced code blocks | A Code style in Consolas, every space kept |
Links and [^1] footnotes | Live hyperlinks and real Word footnotes |
> quotes | A Quote style |
Because the headings are Word's Heading styles, References, Table of Contents builds a contents page from them, and changing the Heading 1 style changes every chapter title at once.
What stays as text
A Word document cannot hold everything a Markdown file can, so a few things arrive in a form you can still use:
- Images become their description, linked to the image's address. An image on your disk or another site cannot be read from this page, so insert the picture in Word afterwards.
- Mermaid diagrams and math stay as their source in a code block. For a document full of either that only needs reading, a PDF keeps them drawn: see Markdown to PDF.
- Raw HTML keeps its words and loses its tags.
A .docx is the format Word, Google Docs, Pages and LibreOffice all open, so
the same file works in any of them.
Copy instead of downloading
Copy for Word puts the formatting on the clipboard. Paste it into an open Word document, a Google Doc or an email and the headings, lists and tables arrive formatted, in that document's own styles. It is the quicker route for a section; the file is better for a whole document.
Markdown to Word compares these with Pandoc, the command line tool for converting many files at once.
Questions
Is the Markdown to Word converter free?
Yes. There is no account, no limit on length, and no watermark in the file.
Is my document uploaded?
No. The .docx file is put together in this browser tab and saved straight
to your computer. Nothing is sent to a server.
Can I convert Markdown to .doc?
The converter writes .docx, which every version of Word since 2007 opens.
If something really needs the older .doc, open the file in Word and save
it as Word 97 to 2003.
Can I convert a Word document back to Markdown?
Yes. Copy the text in Word and paste it into the HTML to Markdown converter, which reads Word's formatting.