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How to Save Wikipedia Articles as Markdown

· Save Team
wikipedia encyclopedia research education

Wikipedia is humanity’s most comprehensive encyclopedia—millions of articles on every topic imaginable. But Wikipedia’s dense format with footnotes, sidebars, and cross-references can be overwhelming. Here’s how to convert Wikipedia articles into clean, focused Markdown.

Why Save Wikipedia as Markdown?

Wikipedia articles are excellent but complex:

  • Information overload — sidebars, references, disambiguation
  • No offline access — in the standard interface
  • Hard to annotate — can’t add personal notes
  • Evolving content — articles change over time

Saving to Markdown gives you a clean snapshot you can work with.

What Save Captures from Wikipedia

Article Content

  • Main article text
  • Section headings and structure
  • Lists and tables
  • Important links preserved

What Gets Removed

  • Navigation sidebars
  • Edit links
  • Reference numbers (links preserved separately)
  • Administrative notices
  • “See also” clutter

Example Output

# Quantum Computing

Quantum computing is a type of computation that harnesses
quantum mechanical phenomena such as superposition and
entanglement...

## History

The idea of quantum computing was first explored in the
1980s when physicist Richard Feynman proposed...

## Principles

### Qubits

Unlike classical bits that can be either 0 or 1, quantum
bits (qubits) can exist in a superposition of both states
simultaneously...

### Quantum Gates

| Gate | Symbol | Function |
|------|--------|----------|
| Hadamard | H | Creates superposition |
| CNOT | CX | Entangles qubits |
| Pauli-X | X | Bit flip |

## Applications

- Cryptography and security
- Drug discovery
- Financial modeling
- Artificial intelligence

Use Cases

Academic Research

  • Save source material for papers
  • Create reading lists on specific topics
  • Build study guides for exams

Personal Learning

  • Archive articles on topics you’re studying
  • Create distraction-free reading copies
  • Build personal encyclopedias by interest

Content Creation

  • Research background for articles
  • Gather facts for presentations
  • Source information for scripts

AI-Enhanced Research

Feed Wikipedia content to AI assistants to:

  • Summarize complex topics
  • Explain technical concepts simply
  • Compare related subjects
  • Generate quiz questions

Tips for Best Results

  1. Expand collapsed sections — some content is hidden by default
  2. Works on any language — Wikipedia exists in 300+ languages
  3. Tables are preserved — as Markdown tables when possible

Handling Wikipedia’s Complexity

Wikipedia has unique elements that Save handles:

  • Infoboxes → converted to structured lists
  • Citations → superscript numbers removed, links preserved
  • Internal links → converted to standard Markdown links
  • Tables → preserved in Markdown table format

Offline Wikipedia

While Save gives you individual articles, for complete offline Wikipedia access, consider:

  • Kiwix (offline Wikipedia reader)
  • Wikipedia’s data dumps

Save is perfect for grabbing specific articles you need.

Get Started

Install Save from the Chrome Web Store — make research easier.

Have questions? Reach out at support@savemarkdown.co