How to export a Google Doc to Markdown

Google's add-on store has converters that read the open document and hand back Markdown. The best-known is Docs to Markdown; install it from Extensions → Add-ons → Get add-ons, then run it from the Extensions menu.

• Works on the document as it stands, no download first.
• Usually keeps headings, lists, links, bold and italic.
• Needs an add-on with access to your document, which is a permission decision worth making deliberately.
• Output quality varies with tables, comments and nested lists.

Download the doc as Word (.docx) or as a web page (.html), then convert on your own machine. With Pandoc, one command does it:

pandoc draft.docx -t gfm -o draft.md

• Nothing is granted access to your Google account beyond the download.
• Repeatable — script it over a folder of documents.
• Needs a terminal and a Pandoc install.
• .docx keeps more structure than .html in practice, particularly lists and tables.

If the document is still being written, the conversion is the wrong end of the problem. Quorly is a browser editor that imports .docx and exports .md, so the route is: download the Google Doc as Word, open it in the editor, keep writing, then Export → Markdown.

1. In Google Docs: File → Download → Microsoft Word (.docx).
2. In Quorly: Import → choose the file. Headings, lists, bold, italic and links are rebuilt on import.
3. Write or edit, then Export → Markdown. In Chromium browsers the file picker writes the .md straight to disk; elsewhere it downloads.

That is only worth doing if you will keep writing. Converting a finished document is a job for option 1 or 2. Before you submit it, the word counter gives you the number most forms ask for, without uploading the draft to check it.

Markdown is a text format, so anything that is not text does not survive:

• Comments and suggestions — gone. Resolve them first if they matter.
• Tracked changes — gone; the document's current state is what converts.
• Floating and wrapped images — usually flattened to a link or dropped. Inline images work if the converter keeps them and you keep the files together.
• Precise layout — columns, page breaks, headers and footers are not part of Markdown.
• Footnotes — supported by some converters, not by all. Check before relying on them.

Headings, bold, italic, links, lists, block quotes and code blocks are the parts that convert reliably, which is exactly the parts a draft needs.