XML Formatter
Pretty-print, validate and minify XML documents entirely in your browser.
About XML Formatter
The XML Formatter pretty-prints, validates and minifies XML in your browser. Paste one-line XML and get cleanly indented markup; paste something broken and the well-formedness check points out the error.
Formatting adds indentation around nested elements so configuration, feeds and API payloads are easier to inspect in code review. Minifying performs the opposite presentation step by removing unnecessary inter-tag whitespace when you need a compact payload.
Comments, CDATA sections and namespaces are preserved in both format and minify modes. Validation checks whether the document can be parsed as XML, including matching tags and legal structure, but it does not prove that values satisfy an external XSD or business rule.
How XML Formatter works in practice
- 1Paste your XML into the input area.
- 2Pick an indent size (2 or 4 spaces).
- 3Click "Format" to pretty-print or "Minify" to strip whitespace.
- 4Click "Validate" for a well-formedness check without altering the input.
Jobs this tool is built for
- Pretty-print a one-line API response or SOAP payload before debugging it.
- Validate an application configuration file after manually changing nested elements.
- Minify an XML fixture or feed where transport size and compact output matter.
- Inspect namespace prefixes, comments and CDATA sections in third-party XML.
What you can do here
- Pretty-printing with configurable indent
- Well-formedness validation
- Minify mode for production payloads
- Preserves comments, CDATA and namespaces
Limits and honest caveats
- Well-formedness is not the same as schema validity — a document can parse cleanly and still fail an XSD or business rule elsewhere.
- Formatting and minifying change whitespace around markup. If your application treats whitespace as significant (mixed content), compare outputs carefully before deploying.
- XML is processed locally in your browser and is not uploaded by this tool.
Common questions about XML Formatter
Does the tool validate against a schema?
It checks well-formedness (correctly nested tags), not XSD schema conformance.
Can I format very large XML?
Yes — files up to several megabytes work smoothly on desktop browsers.
Will formatting change element values?
The formatter changes layout whitespace around markup, not tag names or values. Whitespace can be meaningful in some XML applications, so compare sensitive mixed-content documents.
Is my XML uploaded?
No. Parsing, formatting and validation run in your browser, which is useful for private configuration and API samples.
This page was written by the ToolSink team to explain how XML Formatter works on this site — it is not syndicated, scraped, or spun from another publisher. How we write tool guides · Site updates · About ToolSink.
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