Free EPUB to Markdown converter
Drop an eBook, get its full text as clean Markdown — right here in your browser. Nothing uploads, and a book most AI chats won't even accept becomes a file every one of them can read.
Drop an EPUB to convert
click to browse, or paste a screenshot with Ctrl+V
How to convert an EPUB to Markdown
- Drop your .epub into the box above (or click to browse). The book is unpacked and parsed by JavaScript on your own device — it is never uploaded anywhere.
- Press Convert and watch the progress bar walk through the chapters. Even a full-length book takes seconds, because an EPUB is text underneath — there are no page images to decode.
- Download the .md or copy the Markdown into your AI chat. The result card shows the token count first, which matters for a book — you'll often want one section rather than all of it at once.
What the converter does with an EPUB
An EPUB is secretly a ZIP archive of web pages: one XHTML file per chapter, plus a manifest that says which files exist and a "spine" that says what order to read them in. That structure is exactly what this converter uses:
- Chapters come out in reading order. The converter follows the book's own spine — the same order your eReader turns pages in — not the file order inside the archive, which often differs.
- Each spine document becomes a section headed "Chapter 1", "Chapter 2", and so on, so you can pull out just the part you want to discuss before pasting it into a chat.
- The book's own formatting is translated, not flattened. Because chapters are HTML, headings keep their levels, emphasis stays emphasis, block quotes become Markdown quotes, and numbered or bulleted lists stay lists — as the example below shows.
- Tables and links survive too. An HTML table in the book becomes a Markdown table; links keep their text and target.
- Empty documents are skipped. Spine entries with no readable text — blank separators, image-only pages — are dropped rather than left as empty sections.
A real example
This is actual output from this converter. The input was a two-chapter EPUB whose XHTML contained headings, italics, a block quote and a bulleted list:
## Chapter 1 # The Long Road North The trail began where the tarmac gave out, a strip of packed gravel climbing into the birch forest. We walked for *three days* before seeing another person. > Distance, I wrote in my notebook, is measured in silences. ## Chapter 2 # Provisions What we carried, by weight: - Tent and bags — 6.1 kg - Food for five days — 4.8 kg - Stove, fuel and pot — 1.9 kg
Each spine document got a "Chapter" section, and inside it the book's own title heading, the italics, the quote and the list all came through as real Markdown rather than flat text. Note the chapter's own heading keeps its original level from the book's HTML — the section markers are there for navigation, not to restructure the book.
Why convert? Because most AI chats won't take an .epub at all
For PDFs the argument is token cost; for eBooks it's more basic — .epub usually isn't on the list of file types an AI chat will accept, so the book's content is simply out of reach. Converted to Markdown it becomes an ordinary text file that any assistant can read, quote and summarise.
A whole book is a lot of tokens, and the chapter sections are the practical answer: open the .md, copy the chapters you actually want to work with, and keep the rest for later. The token count on the result card tells you before you paste whether the whole thing fits in a context window or whether to go chapter by chapter. The full token argument is on the home page.
What EPUBs are hard, and what to do about them
DRM-protected books can't be converted. Books bought from stores that apply DRM (Adobe DRM, Kobo, and others) have their chapter files encrypted inside the archive, and this converter does not — and will not — break encryption. DRM-free purchases, Project Gutenberg downloads, self-published books and your own manuscripts all convert fine.
Kindle formats are not EPUB. .mobi, .azw and .azw3 files are Amazon's own containers and won't open here. Calibre converts them to EPUB (when DRM-free), and that EPUB converts cleanly.
"Chapter" numbering follows the spine, not the table of contents. Every document in the book's reading order gets a number — and books front-load covers, title pages and copyright notices, so "Chapter 1" in the output may be the cover page and the book's real first chapter may land at "Chapter 4". The book's own chapter titles are right there in the text, so it's easy to see which is which.
Images don't come along. Covers, illustrations and diagrams live as separate image files inside the archive; the output keeps a reference where each one stood (its description, when the book provides one) but the pictures themselves stay in the EPUB. For a book whose value is in its diagrams, this is the wrong tool.
EPUB conversion questions
Is this EPUB to Markdown converter really free?
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Yes — free, unlimited and without an account. The book is parsed in your browser rather than on a server, so there is no per-file cost for us to pass on and no reason to meter you.
Is my eBook uploaded to a server?
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No. The EPUB is unpacked and converted by JavaScript running on your own device — you can watch the network tab while it runs. Your library stays yours.
Can it convert books with DRM?
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No. DRM encrypts the chapter files inside the EPUB, and this tool doesn't circumvent that. DRM-free books — Project Gutenberg, most indie stores, technical publishers like O'Reilly's DRM-free line, your own drafts — convert without issue.
Can ChatGPT or Claude read an EPUB directly?
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Generally no — .epub is rarely an accepted upload type, which is exactly why this page exists. Converted to Markdown, the same book is a plain text file that pastes or uploads anywhere.
Why do the chapter numbers not match the book's chapters?
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The converter numbers every document in the book's reading order, and books typically open with a cover page, title page and copyright page before the story starts. The book's own chapter headings are preserved in the text, so the real structure is always visible.
How long does a full book take?
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Seconds. An EPUB is already text — there's no OCR and no page rendering, just unpacking the archive and converting each chapter's HTML. The progress bar steps through the chapters as it goes.
PDF to Markdown
Got the book as a PDF instead? Headings, paragraphs and tables are reconstructed from the page layout.
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