Markdown in Google Docs

The Chrome extension connects Markdown and Google Docs in both directions: text pasted as Markdown comes out formatted, a .md file opens as a Google Doc, and any Google Doc can be copied or downloaded as Markdown. All of it is free, uses no credits and works without the AI features.

Copy a reply from ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini as plain text, or the contents of a .md file, and press Ctrl+V (Cmd+V on a Mac) in a Google Doc. The extension recognises Markdown on the clipboard and pastes it as formatted text instead of literal # and * characters.

A small toast at the bottom of the page confirms Pasted Markdown with formatting, with two buttons:

• Undo puts back the plain text exactly as Google would have pasted it.
• Turn off disables the conversion. It can be turned on again in Settings.

The conversion only runs when the clipboard holds plain text that looks like Markdown. Rich text copied from a web page, a Doc or a chat interface already carries its formatting and is left to Google Docs as usual. Google’s own Tools ➤ Preferences ➤ Enable Markdown setting is not required and is not changed.

Markdown	In the document
# to ######	Heading 1 to Heading 6, visible in the outline
-, *, 1. and nested lists	Bulleted and numbered lists with their levels
Pipe tables	Google Docs tables, header row in bold
Fenced code blocks	A shaded single-cell table in a monospace font, one paragraph per line
Inline code	Monospace text
[text](url)	A clickable link
**bold**, _italic_, ~~strikethrough~~	Bold, italic, strikethrough
- [ ] and - [x] task lists	A ☐ or ☑ character in front of each item
> quotes	Indented paragraphs
Horizontal rules	A horizontal line

Open the side panel, then Settings, and use the Convert pasted Markdown in Google Docs switch. The Turn off button in the toast changes the same setting. The choice applies to every Doc and is kept across restarts.

Google Drive can also open a .md file directly since October 2026. Use the viewer when you need the preview, Mermaid diagrams, math or the export buttons first.

At the bottom of every Google Doc, the GPT Workspace bar has a ⋮ menu with a Markdown entry:

• Copy document as Markdown copies the whole document. Images are left out of the copy, and the toast says how many.
• Download .md saves the whole document as a Markdown file, with images embedded.
• Copy selection as Markdown converts only the text you selected.

The same three actions are in the right-click menu of a Google Docs tab under GPT Workspace. The export uses Google’s own Markdown export, cleaned up so that punctuation is not escaped and blank lines are not doubled. The result follows GitHub-flavoured Markdown: headings, lists, tables, bold, italic, links and code.

• The document itself, and what collaborators see. Pasting creates a normal edit that Undo reverts, and exporting reads the document without writing to it.
• Google’s own Markdown settings under Tools ➤ Preferences. They can stay on or off, the extension does not depend on them.
• Nothing is sent to GPT Workspace servers for pasting or exporting. The one exception is Open in Google Docs while signed in, which sends the Markdown to create the Doc in your Drive.

• Tables inside tables, footnotes and raw HTML are not converted on paste. The HTML is pasted as text, footnotes as plain numbers.
• Images referenced by URL in pasted Markdown are not fetched. Insert them with Insert ➤ Image afterwards.
• On copy, images are stripped so that the clipboard stays small. Download .md keeps them.
• Very large documents can take a few seconds to export. An export that has not finished after a minute is cancelled with a message.
• Desktop Chrome extension only. The Workspace add-on and the mobile apps do not have it.

The same converters run in the browser without the extension, at gpt.space/tools: Markdown to Google Docs, Markdown to PDF, Markdown to Word, Word to Markdown, PDF to Markdown and a Markdown viewer.