| name | md-to-txt |
| description | Strip Markdown formatting and produce clean plain text via pandoc. Use when the user asks to convert to plain text or export markdown as a .txt file. |
| lastReviewed | 2026-05-26T00:00:00.000Z |
Md To Txt
Strip all Markdown formatting and produce clean plain text. Useful for clipboard export, email body fallback, accessibility, and as input to text analysis tools.
Quick Start
node .github/skills/md-to-txt/scripts/md-to-txt.cjs source.md output.txt
Options
| Flag | Default | Effect |
|---|
--wrap N | 80 | Line wrap width (0 = no wrap) |
--strip-frontmatter | off | Remove YAML frontmatter |
--strip-mermaid | off | Replace Mermaid blocks with [diagram] |
--strip-images | off | Replace image refs with alt text |
--no-replace-em-dashes | em-dashes ARE replaced for txt | Keep — literal |
--strip-decorative-rules | HRs preserved for txt | Strip decorative --- lines |
Format-Aware Defaults
Plain text gets:
- Em-dash →
, ON. AI-tell em-dashes look bad in monospace fonts.
- Decorative HR strip OFF. Pandoc renders
--- as visible plain-text dividers, which are usually intentional in txt output.
Override via flags above.
What gets stripped
- Bold, italic, strikethrough markers
- Inline code backticks
- Link URLs (alt text preserved)
- Heading
# markers
- Bullet/list markers (indentation preserved)
Related
- Markdown linting — pre-flight the source with the project's linter or Core's
lint-clean-markdown skill
- md-to-word — for formatted output
Would Revise If
Revisit this skill by 2026-08-26 (90 days) or sooner if any of the following fires: pandoc upstream changes plain-text output in a way that breaks the documented "stripped" list; the heuristic for indentation preservation produces wrong output on a real source the user converts; or a heir needs a stripped-but-not-plain output (e.g., RTF, SRT) that this skill doesn't cover — split into a sibling skill instead.
