New Tool: Text Preview - Render Markdown, HTML, and Plain Text Instantly

Preview Your Text, Your Way

I'm happy to introduce a new addition to PowerDev.Tools: Text Preview. It's a simple but surprisingly handy tool — paste in Markdown, HTML, or plain text, and see it rendered as formatted output instantly.

Why I Built This

We're surrounded by text that isn't meant to be read raw. Markdown files, HTML snippets, AI-generated reports — they're all meant to be rendered. Yet how often do you find yourself squinting at raw markup, trying to mentally parse what the final output looks like?

I hit this problem constantly when working with AI-generated documents. Tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Copilot produce Markdown-formatted responses — PRDs, technical documentation, status reports, analysis summaries. When these end up as .md files or in a clipboard, you need a quick way to see the rendered result without committing to a full editor or pushing to a repo.

How It Works

Using Text Preview is straightforward:

1. Select your format — Choose between Markdown, HTML, or Plain Text
2. Paste or type your content — The left panel accepts your input with full syntax highlighting
3. See the rendered output — The right panel updates live as you type, with a slight debounce to keep things smooth

That's it. No setup, no configuration, no accounts.

My Favorite Use Case: Text-to-Speech for AI Documents

Here's something I use Text Preview for almost daily: preparing AI-generated documents for text-to-speech.

When you're dealing with a high volume of AI-generated content — documentation, PRDs, lengthy reports, code reviews — reading everything on screen becomes exhausting. I started using browser-based text-to-speech plugins to listen to documents while doing other tasks. The problem? TTS plugins struggle with raw Markdown. They read asterisks, hash symbols, pipe characters, and all the formatting noise out loud.

Text Preview solves this perfectly. I paste the Markdown into the tool, and the rendered HTML panel gives me clean, formatted text that TTS plugins can read naturally. No more listening to "hash hash Introduction" or "asterisk asterisk bold text asterisk asterisk".

More Use Cases

Reviewing AI-Generated Content

AI assistants produce Markdown constantly. Whether it's a generated README, a technical specification, or meeting notes, Text Preview lets you quickly verify the formatting looks right before you save or share it.

Drafting Markdown Content

Writing a blog post, documentation page, or GitHub issue? Use Text Preview as a live Markdown editor. You get syntax highlighting on the input side and a rendered preview on the output side.

Checking HTML Snippets

Building an email template or a widget? Paste your HTML and see the rendered result instantly. The tool sanitizes the content — stripping scripts, event handlers, and dangerous elements — so you can safely preview untrusted HTML.

Quick Content Sharing

Need to share formatted text with someone who doesn't have a Markdown renderer? Paste your content, take a screenshot of the rendered preview, and share it. Much cleaner than sending raw Markdown.

Reviewing Documentation Pull Requests

When reviewing PRs that modify .md files, it's useful to see how the changes actually render. Copy the changed Markdown into Text Preview for an instant visual check.

Privacy First

Like every tool on PowerDev.Tools, Text Preview runs entirely in your browser. This is not a marketing tagline — it's an architectural decision:

• Your content never leaves your machine — There is no server-side processing. Zero. The Markdown-to-HTML conversion, HTML sanitization, and rendering all happen locally in JavaScript.
• No tracking — We don't track what you paste, type, or preview.
• No cookies — No session cookies, no analytics cookies, nothing.
• No accounts required — Just open the tool and use it.
• Works offline — Once loaded, Text Preview works without an internet connection. Install the PWA and you have a permanent offline Markdown previewer.

This matters especially if you work with sensitive content — internal documentation, proprietary specifications, client data, or anything covered by an NDA. Many online Markdown previewers send your content to a server for processing. PowerDev.Tools never does.

Under the Hood

Text Preview uses marked for Markdown parsing and DOMPurify for HTML sanitization. Both libraries are loaded dynamically to keep the initial bundle small. The sanitization layer strips <script> tags, inline event handlers, and external stylesheet references, so even if you paste untrusted HTML, the preview is safe.

Related Tools

If you find Text Preview useful, check out these related tools:

• HTML Page Content Extractor — Extract clean Markdown from messy web pages
• Text Stats — Get word count, character count, and other statistics
• String Processor — Case conversion, trimming, encoding, and more
• Markdown to HTML — Convert Markdown to raw HTML source code

Try It Out

Head over to the Text Preview tool and give it a try. Paste some Markdown, flip to HTML mode, or just drop in some plain text — it all renders instantly.

As always, it's free, private, and works offline. No tracking, no ads, no cookies.

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