EPUB to Markdown

This tool reads an EPUB and rewrites its reading-order text as a single Markdown (.md) file. It is built for moving a book's text out of a closed e-reader format and into tools that speak Markdown: importing a title into Obsidian or Notion as linked notes, dropping chapters into a static-site generator (Hugo, Jekyll, Astro) as content source, or keeping a plain, portable text copy of something you own.

It suits writers and researchers who want to quote, annotate, or restructure a book's prose in a Markdown editor, and anyone archiving an e-book in a format that stays readable without special software. Because chapter titles become real Markdown headings, the output keeps a navigable structure rather than collapsing into one undifferentiated block of text.

It is not a layout or design tool. If you need the book to look like the original (fonts, page design, images in place), convert to PDF instead. Markdown is the right target when the text itself is what you want to reuse.

Drop or select an .epub file. Everything happens in your browser: the file is unzipped and parsed locally, walked in spine (reading) order, and each chapter's HTML is mapped to Markdown. Nothing is uploaded, and the parsed book is gone once you close the tab.

The converter maps structure where it can. Headings h1 through h6 become # to ######; bold (strong/b) becomes **text**, italic (em/i) becomes *text*; ordered and unordered lists, blockquotes, inline code, and code blocks (pre) are preserved; links keep their URL (in-page anchor links are flattened to plain text). Chapter titles come from the EPUB's table of contents, falling back to the first heading or a numbered placeholder. You get a per-chapter checklist with All/None toggles and word counts, an optional YAML front matter block (title, author, language, date) for Hugo/Jekyll/Obsidian, then Download .md or Copy to clipboard. Chapters are joined with a --- separator.

What it does not do: it does not extract or embed images. External image references emit an  link, but the src is the EPUB's internal path, so the picture will not display unless you supply the file. Data-URI images are dropped to alt text. DRM-protected EPUBs are detected and refused.

Fidelity depends entirely on how the EPUB was authored. Books with clean semantic HTML (proper <h1>, <strong>, <em>) convert cleanly; books that fake formatting with CSS classes or inline styles instead of real tags will lose that emphasis, since the tool reads tags, not stylesheets. Tables, footnotes, sidebars, and multi-column layouts are not reconstructed as Markdown structures.

A common surprise is chapter naming. If the EPUB's TOC is thin or its files are not in clean spine order, some sections arrive as "Chapter N" placeholders or carry a title that does not match what you expected. Front matter, copyright pages, and nav documents may appear as their own chapters. Untick anything you do not want before exporting rather than deleting it afterward.

Two more: do not expect images to travel (they do not, by design), and remember the .md is named after the source file. Also respect copyright. The tool processes anything you can open, but extracting text from a book you do not have the right to redistribute is on you, not the converter.

Open the file in your Markdown editor and skim top to bottom. Confirm chapters are in the right order and that headings render at sensible levels (a chapter title showing as ### instead of # usually means the source used a lower heading). Spot-check a few paragraphs for dropped emphasis, and look at the start and end for stray nav, copyright, or placeholder chapters you meant to exclude. If you enabled front matter, verify the title and author fields actually populated.

Search for ![ to find image references and decide whether to remove them or supply the files, since none will display on their own. Check that list items and blockquotes kept their shape, and that the --- chapter separators land between chapters rather than mid-text.

For anything official, financial, or legal, do not treat the Markdown as a faithful copy of the source. Compare it against the original EPUB passage by passage before quoting, citing, or republishing, because inline formatting, footnotes, and exact wording in styled text can shift during conversion.