What Is an XML Formatter?
XML from APIs, configs or exports often arrives as one long unreadable line, or with messy indentation. Reading or debugging it that way is painful. This free XML Formatter beautifies XML with clean, depth-based indentation — or minifies it to a single compact line — instantly in your browser.
XML (Extensible Markup Language) is a widely used format for structured data exchange — used in SOAP web services, RSS/Atom feeds, Office documents (DOCX, XLSX), SVG graphics, Android resources and countless legacy enterprise systems. Raw XML is often a single compressed line with no whitespace, making it nearly impossible to read. An XML formatter adds consistent indentation and line breaks to make the structure visible.
How to use it
- Paste your XML into the input.
- Click Beautify to indent it, or Minify to compact it.
- Copy the formatted result.
Use Cases
- Formatting the response from a SOAP web service for debugging or documentation.
- Prettifying an SVG, DOCX or XLSX XML source file to understand its structure.
- Validating XML syntax before submitting it to an API or saving it to a file.
- Minifying XML to reduce file size for transmission or storage.
How XML Formatting Works
The formatter uses the browser's built-in DOMParser (parseFromString with 'text/xml' MIME type) to parse the XML into a DOM tree. If the XML has a syntax error, the parser emits a <parsererror> element and the tool reports it. If parsing succeeds, a recursive function walks the DOM tree, writing each element with its indented attributes and children to produce formatted output.
The output uses two-space indentation. Self-closing tags (e.g. <br/>) are preserved. Text content inside elements is preserved verbatim, including whitespace-sensitive content like code samples.
Why use this tool
- Readable, depth-based indentation.
- One-click minify for compact output.
- Private and free — runs entirely in your browser.
Privacy
Formatting runs entirely in your browser. Your XML data is never sent to our servers. The browser's own DOMParser processes everything locally.