XML Formatter

XML produced by programs is often written on a single line, with no spaces between elements, because computers do not need indentation. People do. The formatter splits the document into its parts (start tags, end tags, text, comments, CDATA and declarations) and writes each element on its own line, indented one level deeper than its parent. An element that contains nothing but a short piece of text, such as a title or a price, stays on one line so the output does not become needlessly long. Text inside elements and the values of attributes are never changed, so the formatted XML means exactly the same thing as the original.

Formatting is for reading, reviewing and comparing XML. Minifying is the opposite: it removes the whitespace between tags so the file is as small as possible for storage or sending over a network. Both keep the data the same.

Well-formed XML follows a few strict rules: every start tag has a matching end tag, elements close in the reverse order they opened, there is exactly one root element, attribute values are in quotes, and the ampersand and less-than characters in text are written as entities. The validator checks all of these and points to the line and column of the first problem. Typical messages are an unclosed tag, an end tag that does not match the open element, an attribute without quotes, a duplicate attribute, or text outside the root element. Note that this is a well-formedness check; it does not check the document against an XSD or DTD schema.

Click XML → JSON to turn the document into a JSON object. Each element becomes a key, repeated elements become arrays, and attributes become keys that start with @ (for example @id), so they cannot clash with child elements of the same name. Numbers and true or false values in element text are converted to JSON numbers and booleans; attribute values stay strings. The JSON can then be opened in the JSON Formatter or turned into a table with JSON to CSV.

Although JSON is now common for web APIs, XML is everywhere: SOAP web services, RSS and Atom feeds, sitemaps for search engines, SVG images, Microsoft Office files (which are zipped XML), Android layouts, Maven and .NET project files, invoices in UBL and other e-invoicing formats, and many bank and government data exchanges. A formatter makes these files readable when you need to debug or edit them by hand.

XML files often contain private data: customer records, invoices, API responses with tokens, or internal configuration. This tool formats, validates and converts the XML entirely in your browser using JavaScript. Nothing is uploaded, logged or stored, and the page keeps working offline once it has loaded.