Choosing an editor format in your CMS can feel like a minor UX preference: do authors type in Markdown, or do they use a rich text editor with buttons for bold, links, and lists?
In practice, this choice affects content quality, maintainability, migration options, and how reliably your pages render across channels. It also shapes who can contribute without friction and how much “clean up” work lands on your team.
This post gives a decision framework you can use without getting lost in tooling. You will leave with criteria, a copyable checklist, and an implementation plan that reduces formatting surprises.
Why this decision matters more than it seems
Most content issues that slow teams down look like “formatting problems,” but they are usually data consistency problems. A CMS is not just a writing surface. It is a database that feeds web pages, emails, PDFs, in-app views, and search indexes.
When the format is unclear or inconsistently used, you get symptoms like these:
- Editors paste content from Google Docs or Word and bring invisible styles with it.
- Lists and headings look fine in preview, but break on the live site due to mismatched HTML.
- Content becomes hard to reuse because every entry has slightly different structure.
- Migrations become expensive because you must normalize content before moving it.
A good choice aligns three things: the author experience, the stored content format, and your publishing needs. A bad choice forces you to build endless “fixers” downstream.
Understand what you are really choosing
“Markdown vs rich text” is often framed as a preference. More accurately, it is a decision about how much structure you want authors to control, and how much you want the system to enforce.
Markdown: predictable text with lightweight conventions
Markdown stores content as plain text with symbols that represent structure. It is easy to diff, easy to version, and resistant to copy-paste styling pollution.
Markdown tends to work well when your layout is mostly consistent across posts (headings, paragraphs, links, lists, code snippets). It also works well when content lives near a development workflow, even if non-developers contribute.
Tradeoff: Markdown is not inherently “safe.” If your pipeline allows embedded HTML, you must decide what is permitted. You also need a consistent flavor (how tables work, whether footnotes exist, how you handle line breaks).
Rich text: visual editing with more formatting power
Rich text editors store content as HTML or as a structured document model that can be rendered to HTML. They feel familiar to most authors and support more inline formatting choices.
Rich text is a strong fit when you want content creators to control details like tables, callouts, or inline styling, and when your content will be maintained primarily by non-technical contributors.
Tradeoff: rich text can create inconsistent structure over time. Two authors can produce visually similar content with very different underlying markup, which matters when you reuse or migrate content.
Decision criteria you can actually use
Instead of asking “which is better,” decide based on your constraints. Use the criteria below, then pick the option that wins most categories for your environment.
Copyable checklist: pick the format that matches your reality
- Who writes and edits? If most contributors are occasional editors, rich text reduces training. If editors are power users, Markdown can be faster and cleaner.
- How often do you reuse content? If you repurpose content across pages, emails, and knowledge bases, prefer more predictable structure (often Markdown or a constrained rich text model).
- How strict is your design system? If your brand wants consistent typography and spacing, limit formatting freedom. Markdown plus defined components often helps. Rich text can work if you restrict available styles.
- Do you need complex layouts inside the body? If you routinely embed tables, multi-column sections, or custom blocks, Markdown may require extensions or special shortcodes. A structured rich text editor may be better.
- Is version control important? If you review changes and want meaningful diffs, Markdown is usually clearer than HTML-like rich text output.
- How likely is a future migration? If you expect to change CMS platforms, plain text formats are often easier to transform, but only if you keep a consistent flavor and avoid “clever” custom syntax.
- What is your tolerance for formatting bugs? If you cannot afford “random” HTML quirks, prefer a format with strict constraints and a predictable renderer.
If you are stuck, a pragmatic tie-breaker is this: choose the option that produces the most consistent output with the least training and the fewest downstream fixes.
A concrete example: a small team with mixed contributors
Imagine a small organization publishing a help center and a blog. The team includes one developer, two marketers, and rotating subject matter experts who contribute once per quarter.
They start with rich text because it is familiar. After six months, they notice recurring issues:
- Headings are inconsistent (some authors use bold paragraphs instead of true headings).
- Copy-paste from Docs brings inconsistent spacing, odd font sizes, and nested spans.
- Articles render differently between web pages and the email newsletter export.
They do not actually need complex formatting. They need consistent headings for navigation, predictable lists, and clean links. So they switch the article body to Markdown, but keep a small set of structured fields for things that should not be “freeform,” such as summary, callouts, and related links.
Result: contributors still write comfortably, but the system no longer accepts a hundred different ways to “fake” headings. The developer also gets cleaner diffs and fewer “why does this look weird on mobile” tickets.
Common mistakes (and how to avoid them)
- Mistake: treating the editor as the model. The editor is a UI. Decide what you want to store and reuse, then pick an editor that produces that reliably.
- Mistake: allowing unlimited styling in rich text. If every author can pick fonts, colors, and heading levels freely, your design system becomes optional. Restrict the toolbar to the smallest useful set.
- Mistake: mixing multiple Markdown flavors without documenting it. If some authors use tables and others cannot, content becomes inconsistent. Pick a flavor and document “what works here.”
- Mistake: enabling raw HTML without guardrails. HTML escapes the design system quickly. If you must allow it, define what is allowed and validate it.
- Mistake: ignoring paste behavior. Paste is where formatting gets messy. Prefer “paste as plain text” defaults, or sanitize pasted content, or provide a “clean formatting” button.
When not to force a single format
Standardization is good, but not every content type should use the same body field.
Consider avoiding a single format when:
- You have two distinct contributor groups with different needs (for example: engineers writing docs and marketers writing landing pages).
- You publish to multiple channels where one requires stricter structure (knowledge base) and another benefits from richer layout (marketing pages).
- Your CMS supports structured blocks and your content needs repeatable patterns (FAQs, comparison tables, feature lists) that are better modeled as fields, not as body text.
A practical compromise is to use Markdown for long-form prose and use structured fields or blocks for repeatable, design-sensitive elements.
A rollout plan that does not create chaos
Changing editor formats is not just a toggle. It is a content change, a training change, and often a rendering change. The safest approach is to roll it out in phases and keep conversion reversible until you are confident.
Phase 1: define the “contract” for content
Write down what the body is allowed to contain, and what should be moved into fields or components. Keep it short, and treat it like a contract between authors and your frontend.
Body content rules (example)
- Headings allowed: H2, H3 only
- No inline styles or colors
- Links must be absolute or site-relative
- Tables: allowed only via approved block, not in body
- Images: not allowed in body (use separate media field)Phase 2: constrain the editor to match the contract
If you choose rich text, remove buttons that violate your contract. If you choose Markdown, configure the renderer and disable unsupported extensions. The goal is to make it hard to create invalid content.
Phase 3: migrate existing content with a sampling strategy
Do not attempt a perfect conversion of everything on day one. Convert a small slice first, then review how it renders in the real UI. Pay attention to:
- Heading hierarchy and in-page navigation
- List indentation and spacing
- Link formatting and tracking parameters if you use them
- Special cases like embedded videos or callouts
After the sample looks good, scale the migration and keep a record of known exceptions.
Phase 4: train authors with examples, not rules
One page of “good examples” beats five pages of guidelines. Include common patterns: how to write headings, how to do lists, how to create a link, and what not to paste.
- Pick a format based on output consistency and reuse needs, not personal preference.
- Rich text works best when the toolbar is constrained and paste behavior is sanitized.
- Markdown works best when you standardize the flavor and avoid “secret syntax.”
- Define a content contract first, then configure the editor to enforce it.
- If your content needs repeatable patterns, model them as fields or blocks, not as body text.
Conclusion
Markdown and rich text are both valid choices. The best option is the one that reliably produces clean, consistent content for your channels and your team’s reality.
Decide what your CMS should store, constrain the editor to match, and roll the change out with a small migration sample before you commit. You will spend less time fixing formatting and more time improving the content itself.
FAQ
Can we support both Markdown and rich text?
Yes, but do it intentionally. Use different fields per content type (for example: Markdown for articles, structured blocks for marketing pages). Avoid letting a single field accept both formats, because rendering and validation become ambiguous.
What is the safest format for migrations?
“Safest” usually means most consistent. Plain Markdown can be easy to transform, but only if you standardize the flavor and keep it free of custom, undocumented extensions. Constrained rich text can also migrate well if the underlying model is structured and predictable.
How do we prevent ugly copy-paste formatting in rich text?
Constrain the toolbar, sanitize pasted content, and encourage “paste as plain text” for source material. Most long-term rich text issues come from paste, not from authors clicking the wrong button.
Should we allow HTML in Markdown?
Only if you have a clear reason and you can validate it. Allowing raw HTML increases flexibility, but it also increases inconsistency and can bypass your design system. If you need special layouts, prefer structured blocks or fields instead.