XML Formatter

About XML formatter

Turns a single-line or messy XML document into an indented layout with one node per line, or compresses it the other way for transport. A live banner reports whether the document is well-formed and counts its elements, attributes and maximum nesting depth. It suits reading SOAP responses, sitemaps, RSS feeds and configuration files.

How to use it

1. Paste your XML into the XML input box, or press Load sample to see a catalog with a comment and a CDATA block.
2. Watch the banner above the output: a plain message gives element, attribute and depth counts, while a red one names the first structural problem.
3. On the Beautify tab, choose an Indent size of 2, 3, 4 or 8 spaces, or Tab.
4. Decide whether Keep short text on one line should stay on, which keeps leaf elements such as a title on a single row.
5. Open the Minify tab to strip whitespace between nodes, then use Copy or Download. Files are named formatted.xml or minified.xml.

When to use it

• Reading a one-line SOAP or SAML response that was pasted out of a log file.
• Shrinking an XML fixture before embedding it in a test or a request body.
• Spotting the exact mismatched closing tag in a hand-edited configuration file.
• Normalizing indentation before a commit so that diffs show only real changes.

Questions about XML formatter

Does formatting change my data?

Only the whitespace between nodes changes. Tag names, attributes, comments, CDATA sections, processing instructions and doctypes are copied through verbatim, and text is trimmed only at its outer edges.

How is well-formedness checked?

Two checks run. A built-in scanner verifies balanced, correctly nested tags, a single root element and terminated markup. Then the browser's own XML parser gives a stricter verdict on matters such as duplicate attributes and undefined entities.

Does it validate against an XSD or DTD?

No. It checks well-formedness only, meaning the syntax rules of XML itself. Whether elements appear in the order or with the values a schema demands is a separate check that needs the schema file.

What does Keep short text on one line change?

When it is on, an element holding only text stays on one row together with its closing tag. When it is off, the text moves to its own indented line, which gives longer but more uniform output.

Why is minifying sometimes only a few percent smaller?

Minify removes whitespace that sits between tags, so input that is already compact has little to lose. A badge shows the percentage saved whenever there is something to shrink.

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