XML Beautifier — Format & Indent XML Online

Paste any raw, minified, or messy XML and instantly get a clean, properly indented output with syntax highlighting. No server, no signup — runs entirely in your browser.

Formatted XML will appear here...

What is an XML Beautifier?

An XML Beautifier — also called an XML Formatter or XML Pretty Printer — is a tool that takes compact, minified, or poorly indented XML and transforms it into a clean, human-readable format with consistent indentation and line breaks. XML is used everywhere: configuration files, REST and SOAP APIs, RSS feeds, SVG graphics, Android layouts, Maven projects, and more. When this data arrives as a single dense block of text, it becomes nearly impossible to read or debug.

This tool solves that instantly. Paste any valid XML string, choose your indentation style, and click "Beautify XML" to get a perfectly structured output with color-coded tags, attributes, and values.

Why Use an Online XML Formatter?

Debug API Responses and SOAP Envelopes

SOAP web services return XML envelopes that can contain hundreds of nested elements. Without formatting, spotting a missing tag or incorrect namespace in a flat string is tedious. A beautifier expands the structure so you can navigate it visually and find issues in seconds.

Read Configuration Files

Formats like Maven's pom.xml, Android's AndroidManifest.xml, Spring's applicationContext.xml, and .NET's Web.config are all XML. When these files get corrupted or auto-minified by a build tool, restoring readability takes one paste and one click.

Work with RSS and Atom Feeds

RSS and Atom syndication feeds are standard XML documents. Feed aggregators and scrapers often work with raw feed data. Beautifying a feed before inspecting it makes it easy to understand the structure and extract the fields you need.

Inspect SVG Files

SVG images are XML documents. When exported from design tools like Figma or Illustrator, they often contain minified or unstructured markup. Beautifying SVG code makes it easier to hand-edit paths, remove unnecessary attributes, and optimize the file for the web.

No Installation, Fully Private

This tool uses the browser's built-in DOMParser API — no server, no network request, no data retention. Your XML stays on your machine. It works offline as well as online.

How to Use the XML Beautifier

  1. Paste your raw or minified XML into the left input panel.
  2. Choose your preferred indentation: 2 spaces, 4 spaces, or tabs.
  3. Click "Beautify XML" — the formatted, syntax-highlighted output appears on the right.
  4. Copy the result to your clipboard with the Copy button.

Invalid XML will show a clear parse error message so you can locate and fix the problem quickly.

Indentation Options

2 spaces is the most common standard in web-focused XML projects and matches the default output of most XML linters.

4 spaces is standard in Java and .NET ecosystems (Maven, Spring, .NET config files) and maximizes readability in deeply nested documents.

Tabs let each developer control visual width in their own editor, a flexible option for mixed teams.

Examples

Before — Minified XML

<?xml version="1.0"?><catalog><book id="bk101"><author>Gambardella</author><title>XML Developer Guide</title><price>44.95</price></book></catalog>

After — Beautified XML (2 spaces)

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<catalog>
  <book id="bk101">
    <author>Gambardella</author>
    <title>XML Developer Guide</title>
    <price>44.95</price>
  </book>
</catalog>

Frequently Asked Questions

No. This tool runs entirely in your browser using the native DOMParser API. Your XML never leaves your device — there is no backend, no logging, and no data stored anywhere.

The tool will display a parse error message describing the problem. The browser's DOMParser is strict about XML validity — unlike HTML, XML requires every tag to be closed, attributes to be quoted, and the document to have a single root element. The error message will help you locate the issue quickly.

XML is a strict, case-sensitive markup language where every element must be properly closed and nested. HTML has much more lenient parsing rules. Because XML is stricter, an XML beautifier can always produce a structurally guaranteed output — there is no ambiguity in how elements relate to each other.

Yes, up to a few megabytes in modern browsers. For very large files (10 MB+), browser performance may degrade. In those cases, consider using a CLI tool: xmllint --format file.xml (Linux/Mac) or python -c "import xml.dom.minidom, sys; print(xml.dom.minidom.parse(sys.argv[1]).toprettyxml())" file.xml.

Yes. The browser's DOMParser fully supports XML namespaces (e.g. xmlns: declarations, prefixed elements like <soap:Envelope>). Namespaces are preserved exactly as-is in the formatted output.

Yes. SVG files are valid XML documents. Paste the SVG code directly into the input panel and it will be formatted just like any other XML. This is useful for editing SVG output from design tools like Figma, Inkscape, or Illustrator.

Yes. XML comments (<!-- ... -->) and CDATA sections (<![CDATA[ ... ]]>) are preserved in the formatted output. They are also visually distinguished in the syntax highlighting.

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