XML Formatter

What is XML Formatting

XML (Extensible Markup Language) is a markup language widely used in SOAP services, Office documents, SVG graphics, and enterprise system configurations. An XML formatter converts compressed or messy XML into a properly indented hierarchical structure for easy reading and editing.

XML vs JSON

Feature	XML	JSON
Comments	<!-- -->	Not supported
Attributes	<tag attr="v">	Not supported
Schema	XSD / DTD	JSON Schema
Use cases	SOAP, Office docs, SVG	REST APIs, config files

Core rules: Must have a single root element; tag names are case-sensitive; special characters must be escaped (& < >); attribute values must be quoted.

Common Use Cases

• SOAP/WSDL debugging: format Web Service requests and responses to quickly locate XML nodes
• Configuration maintenance: format web.xml, pom.xml, Spring configs, and other enterprise configuration files
• SVG editing: format SVG source to inspect graphic element structure and attributes
• Data export verification: format XML exported from databases or third-party systems to validate structural integrity

How to Use

1. Paste your XML text into the input area — full documents with declarations (<?xml ...?>) are supported
2. The tool automatically parses and formats the output; syntax errors show the specific tag and line number
3. Choose your indentation size, then click "Copy" to grab the formatted XML

FAQ

Will namespaces be lost after formatting?

No. The tool preserves all namespace declarations and prefixes. Formatting only affects indentation and line breaks — no semantic content is modified.

Does it support CDATA and processing instructions?

Yes. <![CDATA[...]]> blocks and <?...?> processing instructions are correctly preserved and formatted.

What happens with unclosed tags?

The tool will report an error indicating the position of the unclosed tag. XML strictly requires all tags to be properly closed (self-closing tags must be written as <br />).