---
id: strip-markdown
version: "1.3"
license: MIT License
license_treatment: permissive
maintenance: abandoned
---

# strip-markdown — Converts markdown to plain text

License: permissive · Maintenance: abandoned · Downloads: 252.5K/mo

## What it is and what it does

strip_markdown is a lightweight converter that takes markdown source and produces plain text output, stripping away all formatting directives, links, emphasis markers, and structural elements. It works as both a standalone command-line tool (via `python -m strip_markdown`) and as an importable Python library, making it useful for extracting readable text from markdown documents.

The package depends on markdown and beautifulsoup4 to parse and clean the input. It is marked as Production/Stable in its classifiers, but has been abandoned since May 2023 with no subsequent releases or commits. The last version (1.3) was released on 2022-04-23, meaning the codebase has not been maintained for over a year.

Use it for:

- Extract plain text from markdown documentation for indexing or full-text search.
- Convert markdown README files to plain text for display in systems that don't support markdown rendering.
- Prepare markdown content for text analysis, NLP, or content moderation pipelines.
- Batch convert markdown files to plain text format for archival or migration purposes.
- Strip formatting from markdown before feeding text to downstream tools that expect unformatted input.

## Worth the install?

AI-flagged interpretation of the facts above — verify before relying.

Converts markdown text to plain text, removing all formatting, links, and structural markup while preserving readable content. Provides both a command-line tool and a Python library interface.

Yes, if you need a simple, dependency-light markdown-to-text converter and can tolerate an unmaintained package. The low install friction and permissive license make it a reasonable choice for one-off conversions or non-critical workflows. No if you require active maintenance, security updates, or compatibility guarantees with future Python or dependency versions—consider an actively maintained alternative for production systems.

## Install

pip install strip-markdown
uv add strip-markdown
poetry add strip-markdown

## Installing strip-markdown

Before you install: Low install friction with only two runtime dependencies (markdown and beautifulsoup4). However, the package is abandoned—last release was 2023-05-04 and no updates since. Maintenance status is inactive, so security patches or compatibility fixes are unlikely.

License in practice: MIT License (permissive) means you can use, modify, and distribute this package freely with minimal restrictions, though you must include the license notice.

Quickstart:

pip install strip_markdown

import strip_markdown
plain_text = strip_markdown.strip_markdown("# Title\n**Bold**")
print(plain_text)

Requires Python 3.10 or later.

Verify before relying:

- Whether the package handles edge cases in complex markdown (tables, nested lists, code blocks with special characters).
- Performance characteristics with large markdown files or streaming input.
- Compatibility with recent versions of beautifulsoup4 and markdown dependencies.

## Package facts

- License: MIT License (permissive)
- Python support: supports_current
- Install friction: low
- Maintenance: abandoned
- Downloads: 252.5K/month (top 15,000 on PyPI)
- Known vulnerabilities: none known

## Tags

markdown to plain text, strip markdown formatting, remove markdown syntax, markdown text extraction, convert md to txt, markdown parser plain text, markdown cleanup tool, markdown-conversion, text-extraction, cli-tool

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