View markdown files offline

Question

Is there a way to display .md files offline so we know what it will look like once it's uploaded in Github? I'm referring to showing the README.md file as it would come out in Github, and not as for editing purposes.

Needs to work on Mac and Windows since I use both.

Jim Bergman · Answer 1 · 2016-11-18T20:20:44.560

477

There are a few Chrome plug-ins that work well. I've been using Markdown Preview Plus.

After install, enable "Allow access to file URLs" in Extensions (menu > More tools > Extensions or enter URL chrome://extensions/ instead).

Then drag-n-drop a Markdown file onto Chrome and use your favorite editor to edit.

edited Nov 18 '16 at 20:20

answered Mar 25 '13 at 22:52

Jim Bergman

5,207
2
17
19

score 319 · Answer 2 · edited Dec 23 '22 at 01:47

319

I wrote Grip a while ago to do exactly this. It renders exactly like it does on GitHub and provides several additional options too:

In addition to READMEs, Grip can renders GitHub comments and issues
Click through local links to render other .md files
An API to use in your own projects
Export to an HTML file

Install with pip:

pip install grip

Then go to the directory that contains your README file and run:

grip

Pass -h for additional help and options.

Here's a screenshot of Grip rendering Grip's README:

Screenshot of Grip rendering Grip

Check it out here.

edited Dec 23 '22 at 01:47

starball

20,030
7
43
238

answered Jul 24 '14 at 19:28

Joe

16,328
12
61
75

It is in fact really useful, but it does not render exactly like github (e.g. raw html, some syntax highlightning, etc). I found that [gfms](https://github.com/ypocat/gfms) solution (python based) gets the job done pretty well. – luchosrock Aug 01 '14 at 13:55
3

@luchosrock Could you post a gist of Markdown that doesn't render correctly? If there's any mismatch, then I'll file a bug and fix it. – Joe Aug 01 '14 at 17:56
3

@luchosrock I think you may be confusing the two though. From gfms's own docs, "the current implementation of GFMS doesn't color the source code blocks", whereas Grip does. Grip uses GitHub's own Markdown API and styles out-of-the-box, not a custom solution, which is what makes Grip so accurate. Also, gfms is *node* based, not Python. – Joe Aug 01 '14 at 18:04
yeah I must have confused. I never said it was a bad tool anyway. Thanks for writing it. – luchosrock Aug 02 '14 at 18:59
3

Unlike other solutions, works like a charm on Linux! Thanks! – akhmed Sep 15 '15 at 02:31
1

Note that links in github wikis dont work, ie you link to `[foo](foo)`, and it tries to open page `foo`, but it should open `foo.md` – Hugh Perkins Feb 16 '17 at 12:33
5

This is a useful tool, however it seems to use GitHub's API for actually rendering the page in the browser. When I refresh the page more than 30 times, I get a "GitHub Rate Limit Reached" error. It appears that Grip does not support Offline viewing. – Neha Karanjkar Oct 01 '18 at 10:10

score 117 · Answer 3 · edited Jan 22 '21 at 01:11

117

Atom by Github. Gives you a side by side preview.

enter image description here

edited Jan 22 '21 at 01:11

BurnsBA

4,347
27
39

answered Nov 16 '14 at 12:33

Maxim

7,268
1
32
44

2

This is nice if you are editing many .md files. And instant preview, without having to toggle to another app is always a plus. – dval Oct 13 '15 at 14:12
There's even an auto-scroll package: https://github.com/mark-hahn/markdown-scroll-sync. Currently, you'd have to patch https://github.com/mark-hahn/markdown-scroll-sync/pull/66/files for it work with out warnings. – Dror May 22 '17 at 07:55
1

This is also a good suggestion as well. Instant preview with side-by-side pane is a bonus! No need to save and tab out constantly. – AnimNations Jun 08 '18 at 15:21
in Atom, "Packages -> Markdown Preview -> Toggle Preview" to actually see the rendered document – BurnsBA Jan 22 '21 at 01:11
Now that `Atom` has been sunset by Microsoft. Can someone recommend an alternative still endorsed by the GitHub team? – WeakPointer Jan 07 '23 at 14:03

sundeep · Answer 4 · 2015-08-18T06:48:06.667

92

Visual Studio Code - the new editor by Microsoft also provides very good support for markdown editing.
You can download it from here.
The editor provides good support to toggle between the markdown code and the preview mode.
It also provides reasonably good intellisense support for all the markdown syntax.
The editor is free for use and is also cross platform (works on Linux, Windows and Mac).
For more details you can check on their website

edited Aug 18 '15 at 06:48

answered Aug 18 '15 at 06:34

sundeep

1,792
1
15
21

6

Cool, a solution I had installed already! I had two small things to figure out: To open the preview pane, right-click the file's tab along the top and select "Open Preview (Ctrl?Shift+V)". To invoke the intellisense that @sundeep mentions, press Ctrl+Space in the editor window. – Ada Richards Jan 20 '19 at 06:53
6

ctrl+k v to preview – aderchox May 17 '19 at 09:46
2

In case somebody's floundering for the macOS combination it's Cmd + Shift + v – Zoso Dec 14 '20 at 15:06

score 63 · Answer 5 · answered Mar 06 '13 at 07:54

63

Late to the party, but have a look at MarkdownPad.

answered Mar 06 '13 at 07:54

David Brabant

41,623
16
83
111

21

If you want to get support for github flavoured markdown you'll have to get MarkdownPad Pro - for ~15USD. I personally would pay maybe 5USD for it but for sure not 15USD. So if somebody can recommend something else please do so. – floriank Sep 09 '13 at 01:16
4

Just paid the $15 for the pro version, imho worth it, but would be nice if it ran under Mono so I could use it in linux/osx, which is where more of my dev is heading these days. – Tracker1 Nov 04 '13 at 19:05
MarkdownPad seemed to go into mothballs a while back, so I (Disclosure alert: Yes, I made & sell this) made [MarkUpDown](http://markupdown.com), which isn't too shabby at $15. Should be GitHub Markdown friendly, and if it isn't, let me know how it isn't & I'll get it fixed. – ruffin May 01 '17 at 14:36

Nicolas Cornette · Answer 6 · 2016-06-16T09:06:55.437

44

See Python-Markdown-Editor

It is based on :

Python-Markdown
Pygments (code block syntax highlighting)
CodeMirror (javascript code editor)
Bottle

Install with pip :

$ pip install markdown-editor

It features when-you-type preview, code highlight, fenced code blocks, github style

it can be used by commandline :

$ markdown_edit 

$ markdown_edit README.md

$ markdown_edit -f readme.html README.md

enter image description here

I created this to build a tool for sending code reviews, it is easily extensible, by importing it as a module you can add custom actions.

edited Jun 16 '16 at 09:06

answered Apr 24 '14 at 13:21

Nicolas Cornette

772
7
11

Hello, this seems to be an great app, however I can not open two .md files at same time, since most of the time I just want it to be an viewer rather than editor. Will you extends this with such syntax as http://localhost:8000/ to make it able to view multiple .md files? – arcticfox Jun 20 '14 at 22:54
You can edit multiple files with `-p ` option – Nicolas Cornette Jun 16 '16 at 09:12
gives a Traceback error for me – aderchox May 17 '19 at 09:49
Works, but you need to check the latest issues w.r.t version of Python-Markdown is needed. e.g. this report "Installing with pip the installation goes fine, but when launching the editor from command line it throws the following error: ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'pymdownx.extrarawhtml' Uninstalling pymdown-extensions and reinstalling a previous version e.g. pymdown-extensions==7.0 solved the issue for me. This happens because the requirement for installation is pymdown-extensions>=2.0 but can quickly be fixed by specifying exact version." – Goblinhack Jan 13 '21 at 09:33

pduey · Answer 7 · 2014-05-12T11:40:46.790

29

I just installed https://github.com/ypocat/gfms. It does a very good job rendering github flavored markdown. It detects changes in your markdown, so you just put your browser and editor side-by-side. It is Node.js, so it should work fine on any platform.

If you have Node.js is installed, the installation is simple:

sudo npm install -g gfms
gfms --port 9999 (in your project directory)
http://localhost:9999/ (open with any browser)

edited May 12 '14 at 11:40

answered Jan 03 '13 at 20:55

pduey

3,706
2
23
31

Unfortunately, ``gfms`` doesn't render line breaks the way that GFM does--it doesn't insert a
when there's a single line break inside of a paragraph, as GFM does. But for "pure" Markdown rendering, it's fine. – Ed Ruder May 28 '14 at 18:09
2

There is an updated version of **gfms** ([github.com/pawel-wiejacha/gfms](https://github.com/pawel-wiejacha/gfms)) that uses better GFM Markdown backend (Marked) and inserts line breaks correctly. It also has improved directory listings and PDF export feature. – Pawel Wiejacha Jun 21 '14 at 11:23
5

I tried this because it sounded promising. Had to install node.js (expected) but also python. I gave up when it wanted a complete C++ developer toolchain. So depending on your platform it might be easy but if you are on Windows don't even try this suggestion. – Chase Jan 22 '15 at 02:06
Pretty much nothing written in NodeJS works on Windows. When a "install this software" guide starts with "npm install", I've learned the hard way to just walk away. NodeJS is not as cross-platform as developers would like people to believe. Golang and Python are similarly bad but not as bad as Node. The only scripting language that I know of that is truly cross-platform and works everywhere with minimal effort and doesn't require hundreds of MB of junk to be installed is PHP. The PHP CLI is a hidden gem - it's better as a command-line scripting language than anything else out there. – CubicleSoft May 19 '18 at 03:34

score 28 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 23 '12 at 17:35

28

I found a way to view it in PHP. After doing some more snooping I found 2 solutions for offline and online viewing of .md files:

Offline: https://github.com/WolfieZero/Markdown-Viewer-PHP
Online: http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/dingus

I recommend the offline version so you can do your editing even while you're doing your business on the throne. :)

answered Mar 23 '12 at 17:35

enchance

29,075
35
87
127

1

There are plenty of desktop apps for viewing `.md` files as well. – Matt Ball Mar 23 '12 at 17:37
I didn't know that. What are they? – enchance Mar 23 '12 at 19:06
3

https://www.google.com/search?q=markdown%20editor turns up http://markdownpad.com/ pretty immediately – Matt Ball Mar 23 '12 at 19:51
@enchance, Why PHP? A javascript version would be better. – Pacerier Jul 15 '15 at 14:05

score 23 · Answer 9 · edited Nov 05 '19 at 16:37

23

There are people who does not use Google Chrome. There is a Firefox add-on called Markdown Viewer which is able to read Markdown files offline.

edited Nov 05 '19 at 16:37

bcag2

1,988
1
17
31

answered May 20 '15 at 08:02

air-dex

4,130
2
25
25

score 22 · Answer 10 · answered Jun 27 '14 at 12:01

22

pandoc is a nice Text-To-Text conversion tool that solves the problem of offline visualization of your Markdown. Just issue:

pandoc -f markdown -t html README.md > README.html

answered Jun 27 '14 at 12:01

tonicebrian

4,715
5
41
65

score 20 · Answer 11 · answered Oct 29 '12 at 19:27

20

have you tried ReText? It is a nice desktop Markdown editor

answered Oct 29 '12 at 19:27

Nuno Costa

1,620
17
14

so many dependencies. but seems nice enough! – dmeu Mar 06 '13 at 15:24
Some information about how to install reText on Mac OS X can be found [here](http://sourceforge.net/p/retext/wiki/Home/) – lauhub Oct 06 '14 at 19:43
1

You may need to install some dependencies manually for it: sudo apt-get install python3-docutils python3-markdown – Konstantin Smolyanin Jan 21 '15 at 13:55
Everything gets set up automatically in Ubuntu 15.04, both dependencies and the mime type association. – colan Sep 15 '15 at 15:18
Your link now gives a 404, sourceforge may have moved the project. I got to it via google, but here's the link: https://sourceforge.net/projects/retext/ – NuclearPeon Jun 24 '16 at 18:13
the new link gives an error as well @NuclearPeon – aderchox May 17 '19 at 09:51
2

@Moytaba Looks like its moved to github: https://github.com/retext-project/retext – NuclearPeon May 17 '19 at 21:06

score 14 · Answer 12 · edited Jan 13 '14 at 01:50

I found MarkView Google Chrome extension pretty useful, actually it's working like a charm:

MarkView is a Chrome extention for editing and viewing markdown file with an outline view, support multiple table format styles, code block syntax highlight and Github Flavored Markdown.

Features:

Editing and Viewing markdown file in web page style.

Auto reload local file when file is changed (Post-installation: select "Allow access to file URLs" option in chrome://extensions/)

Show outline beside the content in scrollable way

Have buttons for GoTop, ViewSource and GoBottom

Support Github Flavored Markdown table styles and code highlight.

Highlight the code area for programming languages(eg. ```ruby)

Support web pages printing with decent outlook(Chrome->File->Print...)

Responsive: when the window size small than 940px, outline section will automatically hidden; resize bigger than 940px, outline section will display.

MarkView will view all markdown files except those under raw.github.com because that subdomain only displays the source.

More features have been added to MarkView:

WYSIWYG markdown editor
Themes and Code Styling Selection
Support Footnotes¹ ↩
Instant Slides Presentation
Document Custom Styling
- Add Theme CSS and Select
- Add Code Style and Select
- Write CSS, Save and Run

Nathan · Answer 13 · 2012-10-27T11:45:12.367

13

I like the vertical splitter in Downmarker, you can see the changes as you write!

edited Oct 27 '12 at 11:45

answered Oct 27 '12 at 11:40

Nathan

2,617
1
19
27

Handsome Nerd · Answer 14 · 2013-02-09T15:08:40.787

11

You can use texts as a md viewer and md editor, its lightweight and neat. enter image description here

edited Feb 09 '13 at 15:08

answered Oct 25 '12 at 12:14

Handsome Nerd

17,114
22
95
173

1

Looks good, but the installer is 13mb which makes me wonder what all it's installing. – Brian Aug 10 '13 at 11:42
24

Not free: http://www.texts.io/purchase/ – TN. Feb 23 '14 at 20:35
5

Also not available for Linux. – jameshfisher Apr 01 '14 at 16:56
4

I found this to render many md files quite poorly. – Zv_oDD Sep 26 '14 at 02:03
2

On the mac, it requires pre-installing some external tool "fandoc", which I don't know or trust, especially that it lies somewhere in my OS. The wrapper itself (Texts) weighs about 4MB which is far too big for an .md renderer, even without that external tool... well, not so impressive app. – Motti Shneor Jan 26 '16 at 14:42
1

Doesn't render images from git markdown. Forces you to install pandoc. – Dr Deo Feb 07 '16 at 09:11
I tried it. It tries to be WYSIWYG but it changes what I'm writing as I write and it feels awkward - I don't feel in control. I've worked with other Markdown tools I was more comfortable with. Also, as others have noted, it's not clear whether it's a trial or paid product. The Terms and Conditions sounded like a commercial product. – Carl Smotricz Apr 09 '23 at 08:45

Akronix · Answer 15 · 2017-02-09T08:39:58.913

11

Geany has a plugin for markdown which does a fair job, giving you also a Markdown preview in the sidebar. It also runs on Linux, Mac OS X and Windows.

To use it, install geany, then install the package geany-plugin-markdown and select it from the plugin manager.

edited Feb 09 '17 at 08:39

answered Dec 29 '14 at 14:05

Akronix

1,858
2
19
32

William Budington · Answer 16 · 2012-12-07T00:09:48.170

9

I just coded up an offline markdown viewer using the node.js file watcher and socket.io, so you point your browser at localhost and run ./markdownviewer /path/to/README.md and it streams it to the browser using websockets.

markdownviewer https://github.com/Hainish/markdownviewer/

edited Dec 07 '12 at 00:09

answered Dec 06 '12 at 22:47

William Budington

410
5
5

score 9 · Answer 17 · answered Jan 13 '14 at 01:14

9

There is also StackEdit. It will work both online and offline (it uses your browser local storage).

You can also connect it with Dropbox or Google Drive to see files hosted on the cloud.

answered Jan 13 '14 at 01:14

N Alex

1,014
2
18
29

4

Browser storage is very limited. Very very limited. – Pacerier Jul 15 '15 at 14:06

Peter Diakumis · Answer 18 · 2014-10-14T09:53:09.123

8

If you're a vim person, you can try the vim-preview plugin. Simply install it into your ~/.vim directory with your method of choice. Then you can open a Markdown file with vim and use the command :Preview which will open a new window in your browser and display the end result.

edited Oct 14 '14 at 09:53

answered Sep 26 '14 at 15:59

Peter Diakumis

3,942
2
28
26

1

Thanks! Unfortunately, the plugin requires a builtin ruby interpreter and some gems. Too many dependencies for me... – xverges Jan 12 '15 at 14:07
2

Yeah, sorry about that - I had installed it a while ago so forgot to mention about the ruby gems (for future readers: the plugin's link I've included above describes how to tackle this if you're into that sort of ruby stuff). – Peter Diakumis Jan 13 '15 at 03:04
1

Another vim plugin, this one using javascript: https://github.com/suan/vim-instant-markdown – matiasg Jun 12 '15 at 18:53

score 7 · Answer 19 · answered Dec 25 '13 at 04:53

Consider Strapdown.

Strapdown is Javascript-based solution that renders the markdown content in the browser, which makes it great for offline-viewing. From their own description:

Strapdown.js makes it embarrassingly simple to create elegant Markdown documents. No server-side compilation required.

So rename your .md markdown file to .html, and surround it with:

<xmp theme="united" style="display:none;">
# Markdown content here
…
</xmp>
<script src="http://strapdownjs.com/v/0.2/strapdown.js"></script>

and opening in any browser will show rendered HTML. Added bonus: you can easily change the theme.

score 6 · Answer 20 · answered Oct 20 '14 at 05:10

One of the simplest resources that works well on MacOSX is the Markdown Quick Look plugin found at InkMark. After installing this on OS X 10.9+, you simply select a markdown file in Finder and tap the space bar. I am not certain if the results are correlated 100% with Github but they are pretty good and make for a tiny unobtrusive offline viewer only solution. Mashable also wrote an article on 78 different tools if you'd like other options.

Makrdown-QuickLook-Preview

score 5 · Answer 21 · answered Jul 13 '13 at 20:56

5

For MAC I use Marked, for Windows I use Muto-Mark. Both support the GH stylesheet.

answered Jul 13 '13 at 20:56

pseudomuto

266
4
3

+1 : I am using MutoMark for windows: 1. It's very light (395KB) 2. Nice viewer 3. Search capability (Ctr + F) 4. Highlights all search results – Iman Mahmoudinasab Oct 17 '13 at 15:25
1

sadly doesn't seems to support file association – draeron Jan 21 '15 at 22:12

score 5 · Answer 22 · answered Dec 27 '15 at 17:47

5

An easy solution for most situations: copy/paste the markdown into a viewer in the "cloud." Here are two choices:

Nothing to install! Cross platform! Cross browser! Always available!

Disadvantages: could be hassle for large files, standard cloud application security issues.

answered Dec 27 '15 at 17:47

aap

897
11
15

And, of course, You're sharing your pre-release docs with the whole wide world, before even being able to proof them... – Motti Shneor Jan 26 '16 at 13:58

score 4 · Answer 23 · answered Dec 28 '13 at 22:13

4

For OS X, Mou is very nice, and it comes with two GitHub CSS themes.

answered Dec 28 '13 at 22:13

TachyonVortex

8,242
3
48
63

Nice but buggy. E.g. you remove the header marks ###, but the WYSIWYG part still shows it as header. And so on and on, I think I found some 3 or 4 bugs in 2 minutes of using it. – mojuba Apr 30 '14 at 16:52

score 4 · Answer 24 · answered Jun 09 '14 at 21:03

4

Check out Haroopad. This is a really nice #markdown editor. It is free and available for multiple platforms. I've tried it on Mac OSX.

answered Jun 09 '14 at 21:03

qmmr

502
1
5
17

score 3 · Answer 25 · edited Jul 14 '14 at 18:55

3

You can use extension called Markdown Syntax Highlighting for Notepad++. It is available on Github

enter image description here

After installation, new option in the Language dropdown will be appeared

edited Jul 14 '14 at 18:55

Walkman

67
1
2
8

answered Mar 31 '14 at 13:08

Sarvar Nishonboyev

12,262
10
69
70

1

Exciting. Can you add a link to Github? – Smandoli Mar 31 '14 at 13:22
4

This does not answer the question. The goal is for the end-result to show, not the source. – Deryck Jan 10 '15 at 02:34

score 2 · Answer 26 · answered Jan 08 '15 at 17:57

2

From now I use http://marxi.co/. Marxi.co has online and offline version.

answered Jan 08 '15 at 17:57

feeeper

2,865
4
28
42

Iqbal · Answer 27 · 2022-02-09T11:13:06.470

2

Remarkable, certainly a great tool.

Note: Not available for Mac

Features:

Live preview
It's free.
Extremely lightweight
Export to HTML, PDF

Download: https://remarkableapp.github.io/

Edit 2022

I use and love Mark Text now. (https://marktext.app)

edited Feb 09 '22 at 11:13

answered Jan 21 '15 at 09:10

Iqbal

2,094
1
20
28

2

Only works in Linux. The Windows version is in progress. – Alvaro Montoro Jan 21 '16 at 14:22
Not really "Cross" platform. Linux and Windows only - no Mac. – Motti Shneor Jan 26 '16 at 13:57
For what it's worth, I use Mark Text on Mac, and it's the closest thing I've found to a plain viewer. – Oscar Feb 08 '22 at 23:04
Mark Text looks very promising and I expect it to be a better solution than the others mentioned so far. However, I didn't try it yet because the download is 149 MB (!). This is a little heavy for a simple editor. It's not that I am concerned about space consumption, but what ecosystem / underlying software stack would it install? If it's Java or something like that, I won't try it. – Binarus Feb 10 '22 at 11:15

score 2 · Answer 28 · answered Nov 13 '15 at 04:45

2

I frequently want portable applications. For this, I found

http://cloose.github.io/CuteMarkEd/ (I have just tried it briefly, and it seems to work fine).

http://markdownpad.com/faq.html#portable

answered Nov 13 '15 at 04:45

sancho.s ReinstateMonicaCellio

14,708
20
93
185

Seems quite buggy actually – danwellman Dec 10 '15 at 09:47
I used 0.11.3 and it works nicely for me... – Tareq Jun 06 '16 at 23:48

score 2 · Answer 29 · answered Nov 23 '15 at 09:45

2

RStudio can handle markdown files and convert them into html and pdf. If you already have it, you can use RStudio (it is an IDE for R programming language). It is free and open source, and works on Windows, Mac and Linux.

answered Nov 23 '15 at 09:45

Saren Tasciyan

454
4
15

GaryP · Answer 30 · 2014-07-05T01:48:12.037

You may use Scribefire Next.

It's a Mozilla Firefox browser plugin. Just install the extension and fire up Firefox. Customize your toolbar and place the Scribefire shortcut to it. And since it's a browser plugin, you can use it in Mac, Linux and Windows.

When you want to write in Markdown mode, just click Edit Code from the Scribefire window.

Now to meet your purpose, go to Edit Code mode and copy all the texts and paste it to your .md file and upload.

There is no live preview feature for this, you have to toggle Edit Code and Edit Visually to preview your text.

I'm using it in my Linux Mint box:

enter image description here

Update:

It's year 2014, need to add some other awesome tool here for other readers and researchers. Just recently used Brackets + Markdown Preview Extension.

score 1 · Answer 31 · answered Jul 31 '14 at 16:20

1

The popular Web Essentials plugin for Visual Studio offers a Markdown viewer and editor. It also supports the Github language syntax for adding code snippets.

http://vswebessentials.com/features/markdown

answered Jul 31 '14 at 16:20

Kyle B.

5,737
6
39
57

score 0 · Answer 32 · answered Jun 23 '14 at 05:30

0

This php viewer come with responsive support and a numbers of option to customize.

Codespire Dokumen: http://www.binpress.com/app/codespire-dokumen-responsive-markdown-viewer/2112

answered Jun 23 '14 at 05:30

Azri Jamil

2,394
2
29
37

score 0 · Answer 33 · edited Mar 19 '15 at 06:36

0

You may use Firefox Markdown Viewer plugin that is so easy to install and use.

edited Mar 19 '15 at 06:36

udondan

57,263
20
190
175

answered Mar 19 '15 at 05:34

Milad Rahimi

3,464
3
27
39

score 0 · Answer 34 · answered Jan 08 '16 at 20:01

0

FYI, the Calibre ebook viewer does an OK job of parsing markdown files and displaying them.

Once calibre is installed, just ebook-viewer myfile.md.

answered Jan 08 '16 at 20:01

Russ

1

View markdown files offline

34 Answers34

Remarkable, certainly a great tool.

Features:

Edit 2022

Update:

Linked