Promote or demote every Markdown heading by 1–5 levels. Perfect for inlining one doc inside another.
0 found · 0 shifted · 0 clamped
Free Markdown Heading Shifter promotes or demotes every heading in a Markdown document by 1–5 levels. H1 → H2, H2 → H3, and so on — ideal for inlining one document inside another or pulling a subsection out and making it standalone. Code blocks are never touched.
Privacy: This tool runs entirely in your browser. Your text is never uploaded, logged, or cached. Close the tab and it's gone. Verify in DevTools → Network: zero requests fire.
Inlining a README into a bigger doc means every heading has to move down one level. Doing that by hand across 40 headings is boring. This runs in milliseconds and is free forever.
| Input | Output | Typical size | Speed | Login needed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Markdown (.md, .markdown) | Markdown with shifted headings | Up to 5 MB | < 50 ms | No |
Here's what this free tool does in detail — every feature is built to solve real problems, runs entirely in your browser, and is free forever.
Demote adds levels (H1 → H2, H2 → H3). Promote subtracts levels (H3 → H2, H2 → H1). Pick 1–5 levels to shift. Every ATX-style heading in the document is rewritten, and the tool never touches the content, just the # markers.
Pair with the Free Markdown Headings Extractor to audit your heading structure first, or the Free Markdown TOC Generator to regenerate a table of contents after shifting.
Markdown only supports H1–H6. When a shift would go below H1 (promoting too high) or above H6 (demoting too deep), three strategies are available: Clamp keeps the heading at the boundary, Drop removes the heading line entirely, and Strong converts it to bold text (**Heading**).
After shifting, lint your doc with the Free Markdown Linter to catch any structural issues.
Content inside fenced code blocks (triple-backtick or tilde) is protected — the shifter tracks fence state and skips any # that appears inside. Your shell scripts, Python comments, and C preprocessor directives are safe. Only real ATX headings at the line start are rewritten.
Pair with the Free Markdown Formatter for broader whitespace cleanup.
The stats line below the output tells you exactly how many headings were found, how many were shifted successfully, how many hit the overflow boundary, how many were dropped, and how many were converted to strong text. No silent edits — you see every decision the tool made.
To strip out headings entirely (turning the doc into prose), see the Free Markdown to Plain Text tool.
Drop a document with multiple heading levels into the input. Click Load example for a typical H1/H2/H3/H4 structure.
Demote by 1 is the most common operation (used when embedding a doc inside another). Promote lifts prominence. Levels 1–5 control the shift size.
The full document is returned with every heading adjusted. Non-heading content is byte-for-byte unchanged.
Merge a README into a larger guide without mismatched heading levels.
Pull package-level READMEs into a root docs site and demote all headings in one pass.
Promote sub-section headings when splitting a long post into multiple standalone posts.
Combine chapter notes into one document with consistent heading levels.
Normalize heading levels before pasting into a CMS that expects a specific structure.
Yes. Free forever, no account required.
Promote raises prominence (H3 → H2, H2 → H1). Demote lowers it (H2 → H3, H1 → H2).
Pick the Overflow option: Clamp (stay at the boundary), Drop (remove the heading line), or Strong (convert to **bold**).
No. Code content is protected — a # inside a shell script stays a comment.
Only ATX-style (#, ##, ...) headings are rewritten. Setext rows are rare in modern docs and would require a more invasive rewrite.
No. Runs 100% in your browser.