XML Formatter

Format, validate and pretty-print XML documents online. Instantly detect XML errors.

Input XML
Formatted XML

      

About the XML Formatter

This free online XML formatter and validator parses your XML using the browser's native DOMParser engine, reports any well-formedness errors with a clear message, and outputs neatly indented, readable markup. It is perfect for developers working with REST/SOAP APIs, RSS feeds, SVG files, or configuration documents that use XML. No plugins or server calls required - everything runs locally in your browser.

Common use cases

Frequently Asked Questions

How does the XML formatter validate my XML?

The formatter uses the browser's built-in DOMParser API to parse your input as application/xml. If the document is not well-formed - for example a missing closing tag, unescaped ampersand, or mismatched namespace - the parser returns a <parsererror> element, and the tool extracts and displays that error message clearly. This provides the same validation engine used by browsers when rendering XML-based formats like SVG, XHTML, and Atom feeds.

Is my XML data kept private?

Absolutely - all processing happens in your browser using native DOM APIs. No XML content is ever sent to a server, cached, or logged. This makes it safe to paste SOAP envelopes containing credentials, internal configuration files, or sensitive business data that must not be shared with a third-party service.

What types of XML files can I format?

The tool handles any well-formed XML document including SOAP envelopes, RSS/Atom feeds, SVG files, Android AndroidManifest.xml, Maven pom.xml, Spring application context files, XHTML, and general-purpose configuration XML. It does not validate against a DTD or XML Schema (XSD) - it checks only well-formedness, which is the most common need when debugging XML data.

What is the difference between XML validation and XML schema validation?

Well-formedness validation (what this tool does) checks that the XML follows the basic XML syntax rules: all tags are properly closed, attributes are quoted, and special characters are escaped. Schema validation additionally checks that the elements and attributes match a specific structure defined in a DTD or XSD file. For most debugging and formatting tasks, well-formedness validation is sufficient to catch the errors that cause parsers to fail.

Can I use this to minify XML for production use?

Yes - the Minify button strips all whitespace between tags and collapses multi-space sequences, producing compact single-line XML suitable for embedding in payloads or reducing network transfer size. Note that minification removes all insignificant whitespace; if your XML uses mixed content (text nodes that contain meaningful whitespace), review the output carefully before deploying it to a production environment.