Convert HTML Paragraphs to Markdown Text

HTML Paragraphs to Markdown

HTML paragraphs are the most fundamental building block of web content. Converting <p> tags to Markdown is straightforward — the tags are simply stripped, and the text content is preserved with blank lines between paragraphs.

Basic Paragraph Conversion

<p>This is the first paragraph.</p>
<p>This is the second paragraph.</p>

Converts to:

This is the first paragraph.

This is the second paragraph.

In Markdown, paragraphs are separated by one or more blank lines. A single line break within a paragraph does not create a new paragraph — it is treated as a continuation of the same block.

Handling Inline Elements

When a paragraph contains inline elements like <strong>, <em>, or <a>, those are converted to their Markdown equivalents:

<p>This is <strong>important</strong> and <em>emphasized</em> text.</p>

Converts to:

This is **important** and *emphasized* text.

Line Breaks Inside Paragraphs

HTML <br> tags within a paragraph become either two trailing spaces or a backslash at the end of the line in Markdown:

<p>Line one<br>Line two<br>Line three</p>

Converts to:

Line one
Line two
Line three

Most converters use two trailing spaces after each line to signal a hard line break.

Whitespace Normalization

HTML collapses multiple whitespace characters into a single space. During conversion, the same normalization is applied. Extra spaces, tabs, and newlines inside <p> tags are collapsed before the Markdown is generated.