Tablizer

Convert XML to Plain Text Online

Paste an XML table below, edit it if you need to, and get Plain Text back. The conversion runs in your browser, so nothing is uploaded, there is no size limit and there is no signup.

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Nothing here is uploaded. The parsing happens on this page.
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The output will appear here once there is a table to convert.

What XML is

XML marks up data with nested named tags and optional attributes. It is verbose, strict about being well-formed, and can carry a schema that says what shape a document must have.

Enterprise integrations, government data feeds, RSS, SOAP services and older document formats.

What Plain Text is

Plain text here means columns lined up with spaces, the way a command line tool prints a table.

Terminal output, log files, fixed-width exports from older systems.

What changes when you convert XML to Plain Text

The first repeating element is treated as the rows. Attributes are read alongside child elements and prefixed so they do not collide with a same-named tag. Nesting one level deep becomes dotted column names; deeper structures are kept as text.

Columns are padded to the widest value. Width is counted in display columns rather than characters, so a table containing Chinese, Japanese or Korean text still lines up: those glyphs occupy two columns in a monospace font.

What carries over from XML to Plain Text

XML records 3 things about a table that plain text has no way to hold.

An empty cell and a missing one are the same thing in plain text, so a null and an empty string in the XML both come out blank and can no longer be told apart.

XML can hold a value that is itself a list or an object. plain text has only flat cells, so nested values are flattened into one cell rather than being spread across columns.

A line break inside a cell ends the row in plain text, so line breaks are replaced rather than carried through.

The keys stop being repeated: plain text writes the column names once at the top, so the same table takes noticeably less space.

The identifier 007 comes out of the Plain Text as 007. Reading it as a number would have made it 7, and an id that changes value is worse than one that stays text.

The role "Analyst, data" survives with its comma, in one cell rather than split across two. That is the first thing to check in any converted table, and the usual place a Plain Text file goes wrong.

The quotes around Jonah "Jo" Pryce are left as a plain quote character in the Plain Text.

A worked example

Three rows of staff data, with an identifier that has a leading zero, a value containing a comma, a value containing quotes and one blank cell. Those are the four places formats disagree, so they are the four places to look.

XML in
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<staff>
  <person id="007">
    <name>Halima Yusuf</name>
    <role>Analyst, data</role>
    <started>2024-03-15</started>
    <hours>38.5</hours>
  </person>
  <person id="012">
    <name>Jonah "Jo" Pryce</name>
    <role>Engineer</role>
    <started>2025-11-02</started>
    <hours></hours>
  </person>
  <person id="104">
    <name>Wei Chen</name>
    <role>Manager</role>
    <started>2023-06-30</started>
    <hours>40</hours>
  </person>
</staff>
Plain Text out
id   name              role           started     hours
007  Halima Yusuf      Analyst, data  2024-03-15  38.5
012  Jonah "Jo" Pryce  Engineer       2025-11-02
104  Wei Chen          Manager        2023-06-30  40

Questions

How do I convert XML to Plain Text?

Paste your XML into the box above or drop the file onto it. Check the table in the grid, then copy or download the Plain Text from the output panel. It takes one step and the data never leaves your browser.

What happens to nested values?

plain text has no nested cell, so a list or object inside a XML value is flattened into a single cell rather than expanded into extra columns. Split it before converting if the parts need to be separate.

One of my cells has a line break in it - what happens?

A line break would end the row in plain text, so it is replaced instead of carried through. The rest of the cell stays where it belongs.

Is there a limit on file size?

No. The work happens on your own machine, so the limit is your machine's memory rather than an upload cap. A file with tens of thousands of rows converts in a second or two.

Is my data uploaded anywhere?

No. The parsing and generating are done by JavaScript running on this page. You can watch the network tab while you convert and see that nothing is sent.

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