XML Formatter & Validator
Format, minify, and validate XML documents with adjustable indentation. 100% client-side.
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🔒 100% private: All processing happens in your browser. Your XML never leaves your device.
About XML Formatter & Validator
XML (eXtensible Markup Language) is a W3C standard used for structured data exchange. It powers SOAP APIs, RSS/Atom feeds, SVG graphics, Android layout files, Maven/Gradle build files, and countless configuration formats. Unlike JSON, XML is verbose and whitespace-sensitive, and hand-written XML is often dense and hard to read. This tool formats (beautifies) XML with proper indentation, minifies it for compactness, and validates it to find syntax errors like unclosed tags or mismatched quotes. It preserves comments, CDATA sections, and processing instructions, and can optionally sort attributes alphabetically for consistency. Everything runs in your browser.
How It Works
- Paste your XML into the input box.
- Click "Format" to beautify, "Minify" to compress, or "Validate" to check syntax.
- Adjust indent size, sort attributes, or preserve comments as needed.
- Copy the result or download it as a .xml file.
✨ Key Features
- ✓Format (beautify) XML with proper indentation
- ✓Minify XML (remove whitespace and newlines)
- ✓Validate XML syntax with clear error messages
- ✓Adjustable indent: 2 spaces, 4 spaces, tab
- ✓Sort attributes alphabetically
- ✓Preserve or remove comments
- ✓Handles XML declaration (<?xml ?>)
- ✓Preserves CDATA sections
- ✓Preserves processing instructions (<? ?>)
- ✓Preserves namespaces (xmlns:*)
- ✓Line and column info on errors
- ✓Download as .xml file
- ✓100% client-side — no data sent to any server
🎯 Common Use Cases
- →Reading a minified SOAP API response
- →Debugging Android layout XML
- →Beautifying RSS/Atom feeds
- →Formatting SVG source code
- →Validating XML config files (Maven, Gradle, web.xml)
- →Preparing XML for documentation
- →Debugging XML parsing errors
- →Reformatting XML from a legacy system
💡 Advanced Tips & Pro Insights
- ▸XML has exactly one root element. If your document has multiple top-level tags, it is invalid — wrap them in a single root.
- ▸XML is case-sensitive: <Book> and </book> are different tags. This tool catches mismatches.
- ▸Attributes must be quoted ("value" or 'value'). Unquoted attribute values are a common error.
- ▸For SOAP APIs, the entire envelope is XML — format it to see the Body and Header clearly.
- ▸CDATA sections (<![CDATA[...]]>) contain raw text and are preserved as-is by this tool.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is this XML formatter free?▾
Yes, this XML formatter and validator is completely free with no signup, email, or usage limits.
Is my data safe?▾
Yes, 100% safe. All parsing and formatting happens in your browser. Your XML is never uploaded to any server.
What is the difference between format and minify?▾
Formatting adds indentation and line breaks to make XML human-readable. Minifying removes unnecessary whitespace to make the XML as compact as possible for transmission.
Does it validate XML against a schema (XSD/DTD)?▾
No. This tool checks XML well-formedness (proper syntax: matched tags, quoted attributes, valid structure) but not schema validation. For XSD validation, use a dedicated tool like xmllint with --schema.
What are common XML errors?▾
Unclosed tags (<book> without </book>), case mismatches (<Book></book>), unquoted attributes (<a href=x>), invalid characters (& without escaping), and multiple root elements.
Can I format very large XML files?▾
Yes, up to a few megabytes. For very large files (10MB+), consider a command-line tool like xmllint --format or xmlstarlet.
What is CDATA?▾
CDATA (Character Data) is a way to include raw text in XML without escaping. Example: <script><![CDATA[if (a < b) {...}]]></script>. CDATA content is not parsed as XML.
Does it handle XML namespaces?▾
Yes. Namespaces (xmlns:prefix="uri") are preserved in the formatted output and treated as normal attributes.