XML Editor
Edit XML with live validation, formatting and minifying. It runs entirely on your device — nothing is uploaded.
Example
Edit XML with live validity feedback, then Format or Minify.
How it works
The editor validates on each change; Format pretty-prints and Minify compacts your XML.
Good to know
The XML Editor is a browser-based scratchpad for writing, fixing, and cleaning up XML documents. As you type, it checks well-formedness on every change and gives you two one-click transforms: Format, which re-indents the markup into a readable tree, and Minify, which strips whitespace and line breaks to shrink the payload. It's aimed at developers, integration engineers, and anyone who works with config files, RSS/Atom feeds, SOAP requests, SVG, sitemaps, or API responses and wants a quick place to sanity-check them without installing an IDE plugin.
Reach for it when you've pasted XML from a log or an HTTP response and a parser somewhere is rejecting it, or when you need to hand a colleague a tidy version of a dense one-line document. The live validity feedback is the fastest way to confirm a snippet is at least syntactically sound before you spend time debugging the system that consumed it. The Minify pass is handy right before sending XML over the wire or storing it, where every byte of indentation is wasted space.
Read the result as a pass/fail on well-formedness, not on correctness against a schema. A "valid" indication here means tags are balanced, attributes are quoted, and the document parses; it does not check the content against a DTD or XSD, so a document can be well-formed yet still wrong for its intended use. If Format or Minify refuses to run or leaves the text unchanged, that's usually a signal the XML is broken — find the unclosed tag or stray character first.
A practical caveat: everything happens locally in your browser, so nothing is uploaded and there are no size limits imposed by a server, but very large files are still bound by your device's memory and the editor will only handle a single document at a time. If you only need one operation in a pipeline, the dedicated XML Formatter, Minify, or Validator tools do the same job with a narrower interface.
Frequently asked questions
Is my data uploaded anywhere?
No — everything runs in your browser. Your code never leaves your device, so it's safe for private work and runs offline once loaded.
Is this tool free?
Yes, completely free with no sign-up and no limits.
People also ask
What is the difference between well-formed and valid XML?
Well-formed XML follows the basic syntax rules: every tag is closed, elements nest properly, attributes are quoted, and there is a single root element. Valid XML is well-formed and also conforms to a schema such as a DTD or XSD. This editor checks well-formedness, not schema validity.
Why does my XML fail to format?
Format only works on well-formed XML, so a failure usually means there is a syntax error such as an unclosed or mismatched tag, an unquoted attribute, an invalid character, or more than one root element. Fix the parse error the validity feedback points to and try again.
Does minifying XML change its meaning?
Minifying removes insignificant whitespace such as indentation and line breaks between elements, which does not change the data a standard parser sees. However, whitespace inside text content is significant, so minification can alter mixed-content elements where spacing carries meaning.
Can XML have more than one root element?
No. A well-formed XML document must have exactly one root (document) element that contains all other elements. Multiple top-level elements will cause a parse error; wrap them in a single container element if you need to combine them.
How do I include special characters like < and & in XML?
Reserved characters must be escaped as entities: < becomes <, > becomes >, & becomes &, " becomes ", and ' becomes '. Alternatively, place literal text inside a CDATA section so the parser does not interpret it.
Is it safe to paste sensitive XML into an online editor?
With this tool the processing happens entirely in your browser and the content is not sent to any server, so it stays on your device. Safety with any other online editor depends on whether it uploads data, so check that it is client-side before pasting confidential markup.
What is the difference between an XML editor and an XML validator?
An editor lets you write and transform XML, typically with formatting and minifying alongside live syntax checking. A validator focuses solely on reporting whether the document is well-formed (and sometimes schema-valid) and pinpointing errors, without editing features.
Why does formatting add or change indentation in my XML?
Pretty-printing re-derives indentation from the document's element nesting, so any original formatting is replaced with a consistent structure. This is cosmetic for element-only documents, but be aware it can add whitespace around text in mixed-content elements where that spacing may matter.
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