Convert HTML to Markdown

[hallc21]

As Approval Emails and notifications only support Markdown syntax currently, it would be great to have an option to convert HTML into Markdown text. There are many tools available on the internet that do this, so it would be great if Microsoft could reapply by making this connector available in Flow.

[zylantha2]

This could be done with the HTML to Text action that is in preview, it could just have an extra option to enable markdown.

At the very least, HTML to Text should convert hyperlinks properly.  Currently hyperlinks are converted to the format:

Link text [Link URL]

In markdown this should be -

[Link Text](Link URL)

So if it just put the link text in the square brackets and the link URL in parentheses then these would work as markdown.

[hallc21]

If it was just a link that I'm worried about converting, that would be great! But I'm talking tables, text formatting, etc. Which you can find ways to do, but it's not always pretty or simple.

[zylantha2]

Markdown seems to be pretty limited.  While I agree that a conversion routine would be useful, I suspect that due to it supporting so little HTML functionality, it won't be very easy / good to implement.

The better solution is for actions that require markdown (i.e. approval requests in my instance) to support HTML instead of requiring markdown.

https://powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/Power-Automate-Ideas/Approval-Email-HTML-Instead-of-Markdown/idi...

[Hal85]

I disagree with that statement.  Markdown has a lot of counterparts to HTML, mostly because google has been pushing it forward to make use of it in their Docs platform, Calendars, and Tasks.

It would be great if Markdown Text were supported as a converted type.

"There are a lot of online tools..."?  Really?  This could be utilized by JSON to fill in the data and grab the return.  There are also a few github repositories of projects that do the same thing, but require you to build your own server for it.

I'd love to see this become a connector, as most lower function apps on mobile support some version of it.  It's a simpler set of formatting.  Some further integration with google and other services online would be possible, and would make me much more interested in a higher license to make use of connectors like this.

[ONYXJas]

I just annoys me that there is no consistency about email body text formatting across all of the Outlook email and Approval mail connectors.  The objective is (more or less) the same - to send a nicely formatted rich text email to someone for notification and maybe some response.

Please lets have a simple consistent methodology for this that provides the Rich text formatting required, including embedded images for things like email banners.

[Hal85]

@ONYXJas , I couldn't agree with you more about a consistency thing.  But you're speaking in completely different formats.

HTML is not RichText.  Neither is Markdown.  RichText was an add-on formatting that could be accessed from hypertext markup, but wasn't actually part of the HTML standard.  It was later superseded by HTML tagging that resembled similar richtext markup.  However, the forms capability wasn't included in that.  RichText Controls were superseded by VisualBasic UI elements, ActiveX, and later HTML Forms Controls.  RichText is only for applications like word, not for mobile applications like calendar or email.

If you are dealing with MARKDOWN, it is a format that was created in the hopes of superseding HTML as a text formatting language used in mobile apps; it was strictly limited to text.  HTML can include text, images, links etc.  Markdown is catching up, as recently I saw that it can format a hyperlink, but beyond text based operations, it is limited.  With HTML, an image can be embedded directly.

Recently, many mobile calendar and email hosts have been adopting HTML5 in limited form (looking more like the HTML3 or HTML4 subset), but they do it differently on mobile platforms.  Instead of including all the HTML parsing, they have the app display a link that can be opened by a browser, where the message can be viewed in full; then they parse the text as plain text messaging.

Consistency?  Some platforms are now including HTML as an option.  Turn it on.

[jake_harvey]

I'm good with conversion back and forth, but mostly it would be nice to go to HTML. Currently you can create something in Markdown for an Approval... And then the text is useless everywhere else. For example, emailing all the parties involved at the end to let them know the status of the approval.