How to Format and Validate XML Online for Free

Try it now: XML Formatter →

XML documents from APIs, exports, or config systems are often generated as a single unbroken string — technically correct, but painful to read or debug by hand. Formatting adds indentation back so nested tags and attributes are actually legible.

When you need to format XML

• Debugging an XML API response that came back as one dense line
• Reviewing a configuration file before making changes
• Checking whether an XML document is well-formed before feeding it into another system
• Making a document readable enough to share with a teammate

How to format XML online, step by step

1. Open the XML Formatter.
2. Paste your raw XML content.
3. The tool indents and structures it for readability.
4. Check for any validation errors flagged in the process.
5. Copy or download the formatted result.

Tips for working with XML

• Let the validator catch mismatched tags. An unclosed or mismatched tag is one of the most common XML errors, and formatting will usually surface it immediately.
• Convert to JSON if you need to work with it in code — see XML to JSON for a more code-friendly structure.
• Format before comparing two versions of an XML file using the Text Compare Tool, so whitespace differences don't obscure the real changes.

Common questions

Will formatting change the actual XML data? No — only whitespace and indentation change; the tags, attributes, and content stay the same.

Can this validate whether my XML is well-formed? Yes — if the document has a structural problem, like a mismatched tag, the formatter will flag it.

Does this validate against a specific schema (XSD)? This checks that the XML itself is well-formed; it doesn't validate against a custom schema definition.

Have XML that's hard to read? Format your XML for free →