How do I import a Markdown table into Excel?

A Markdown table is text with pipes between the values and a row of dashes under the header:

| SKU | Product | Units | Price |
| --- | ------- | ----: | ----: |
| 007 | Stapler |    40 |  6.90 |
| 012 | Folder  |   250 |  0.85 |

Excel has no Markdown importer. Its text imports understand delimited files (usually tabs or commas) and fixed-width files, and when you paste plain text it splits lines into cells on tabs. Pipes are neither, so the whole table pastes into column A, one row per line, with the bars still visible.

This applies to Markdown from anywhere: README files, wikis, issue trackers, notes apps, documentation and AI answers. For tables copied out of ChatGPT specifically, including the copy-the-rendered-table trick, see the ChatGPT table guide.

There are three routes, from most to least reliable:

1. Convert to CSV and import with From Text/CSV.
2. Save the Markdown as a text file and import it with the legacy Text Import Wizard, using | as the delimiter.
3. Paste it and split with Text to Columns.

If what you want is an .xlsx file rather than an import, Markdown Table to Excel builds the workbook directly: one sheet per table, numbers stored as numbers, codes such as 007 kept as text.

1. Paste the table into Markdown Table to CSV and download the .csv file. The converter drops the dashes row, trims the padding spaces, turns \| into a literal pipe, and quotes any cell that contains a comma, a double quote or a line break.
2. In Excel, click the cell where the data should start.
3. On the Data tab, in the Get & Transform Data group, click From Text/CSV.
4. Pick the file and click Import. A preview opens.
5. Check the delimiter (Comma) and that accented letters look right. The downloaded file is UTF-8 without a byte-order mark; if you see garbled characters, change File Origin to UTF-8.
6. Click Load to put the data on a new sheet, Load To to choose a location, or Transform Data to open Power Query first.

Use Transform Data when the table has codes or IDs: set those columns to the Text type before loading, and leading zeros survive. Otherwise Excel picks a type for each column from the values it sees, and 007 becomes 7.

The result is an Excel table linked to the file. If you convert an updated Markdown table to the same file name later, Refresh pulls in the new rows.

Double-clicking the CSV (or File > Open, then Text Files) also works, and is quicker for a look. Microsoft notes that opening a CSV this way uses Excel's default data format settings for every column, with no preview, so leading zeros, long numbers and date-like values can change without warning.

Limits of the converter to know about: it converts only the first table it finds, it needs the --- row under the header to recognise a table, and Markdown inside cells (**bold**, links, <br>) is kept as typed. Remove Markdown Formatting can strip that first.

The legacy wizard can read the Markdown directly, without converting it, because it accepts any single-character delimiter.

1. Save the Markdown table as a plain text (.txt) file.
2. Turn the wizard on if you have not already: File > Options > Data, and under Show legacy data import wizards tick From Text (Legacy).
3. Go to Data > Get & Transform Data > Get Data > Legacy Wizards > From Text (Legacy) and double-click the file.
4. Step 1: choose Delimited.
5. Step 2: untick Tab, tick Other and type |. Leave Treat consecutive delimiters as one unticked; ticking it collapses empty cells and shifts the rest of the row left.
6. Step 3: click each column in the preview and set its format. Choose Text for codes and IDs. Choose Do not import column (skip) for the empty columns created by the leading and trailing pipes.
7. Click Finish, then pick where to put the data.

You still delete the dashes row afterwards, and the values keep their padding spaces. Use =TRIM(B2) in a helper column, or clean them with Find and Replace, before using the data in lookups.

For a small table you need once, splitting in place is fine.

1. Paste the Markdown table into cell A1. Every row lands in column A.
2. Select column A and click Data > Text to Columns.
3. Choose Delimited and click Next.
4. Untick the other delimiters, tick Other and type |. The preview shows the split. Click Next.
5. Set the Destination and any column formats, then Finish.

Then clean up, because Text to Columns splits exactly what is there:

• Delete the empty first column (the text before the first pipe) and the empty last one.
• Delete the row of dashes under the header.
• Trim the padding spaces with =TRIM() or Find and Replace.
• Check rows containing an escaped pipe (\|): it is split like any other pipe, so the rest of the row moves one column to the right.

Whichever route you take, a quick look saves a wrong total later:

• Numbers stored as text. Left-aligned numbers, or a green triangle in the corner of the cell, mean Excel kept them as text. Thousands separators, currency symbols and percent signs in the Markdown are the usual cause.
• Codes that lost their zeros. Re-import with the column set to Text; formatting the column afterwards cannot bring the zeros back.
• Dates you did not ask for. Values such as 3-4 or 1/2 can become dates. Set the column to Text in the preview or wizard.
• Merged cells and multi-line cells. Markdown tables cannot merge cells, so there is nothing to recover. A <br> inside a cell is just text in Excel.

Sources for the steps above: Microsoft Support, Import or export text (.txt or .csv) files, Text Import Wizard and Split text into different columns with the Convert Text to Columns Wizard. Menu names are for Excel for Microsoft 365, 2024 and 2021, checked October 2026.