Write Markdown on the left, see the rendered output on the right. Supports headings, bold, italic, links, images, code blocks, tables, task lists, and more. Export as HTML or download your file. Everything runs in your browser.
Last updated: March 19, 2026Markdown is a plain text formatting language created by John Gruber in 2004. It uses simple symbols to indicate structure and styling: hash signs for headings, asterisks for bold and italic, hyphens for lists, backticks for code. The idea is that a Markdown document is readable as plain text, but a parser can convert it to HTML (or other formats) for styled output.
Markdown has become the default writing format for developer documentation, README files, wikis, static site generators, chat platforms, and note-taking apps. GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, Stack Overflow, Reddit, Discord, and Slack all support some variant of Markdown. Learning the syntax once gives you a writing tool that works across dozens of platforms.
The editor on this page parses Markdown in real time and renders the preview alongside your text. There are no external dependencies. The parser is built from scratch in JavaScript and handles all standard Markdown elements plus GitHub Flavored Markdown (GFM) extensions like tables, task lists, and strikethrough.
Headings use one to six hash characters at the start of a line. # Heading 1 produces the largest heading, ###### Heading 6 the smallest. A space between the hash and the text is required.
Bold text wraps in double asterisks: **bold**. Italic wraps in single asterisks: *italic*. Strikethrough wraps in double tildes: ~~deleted~~. These can nest, so ***bold italic*** produces text that is both.
Links use the format [link text](url). Images use . Inline code wraps in single backticks. Code blocks use triple backticks on their own lines, with an optional language identifier after the opening backticks for syntax highlighting.
Unordered lists start each line with a hyphen, plus sign, or asterisk. Ordered lists start with a number and period. Task lists start with - [ ] for unchecked or - [x] for checked items. Blockquotes start with > at the beginning of a line.
GFM extends standard Markdown with features that developers use frequently. Tables use pipe characters to separate columns and hyphens to separate the header row from body rows. The alignment of colons in the separator row controls text alignment: :--- for left, :---: for center, ---: for right.
Task lists add interactive checkboxes to list items. Strikethrough text uses the double tilde syntax. Autolinks convert bare URLs into clickable links. Fenced code blocks with language identifiers enable syntax highlighting. This editor supports all of these GFM features.
GFM also includes some behaviors that differ from standard Markdown. Line breaks within a paragraph are preserved (you do not need two trailing spaces). Single newlines between lines create a <br> rather than joining lines into one paragraph. This matches the behavior most people expect when writing in a text area.
Markdown is not a replacement for HTML. It is a subset. Anything you can write in Markdown converts to a specific set of HTML elements: paragraphs, headings, lists, links, images, code, tables, and blockquotes. If you need a <div> with a custom class, an embedded iframe, or a form element, you need raw HTML.
Most Markdown renderers (including this one) pass through raw HTML unchanged. So you can mix Markdown and HTML in the same document. The advantage of Markdown is speed: writing ## Section Title is faster than writing <h2>Section Title</h2>, and the source remains easier to read.
For blog posts, documentation, README files, and notes, Markdown covers everything you need. For full web pages with custom layouts, forms, or interactive elements, you still need HTML (and usually CSS and JavaScript). The "Copy HTML" and "Download .html" buttons in this editor make it easy to convert your Markdown to HTML when you need the output in that format.
Most open-source projects use Markdown for their documentation. The README.md file in a repository is the first thing visitors see on GitHub and GitLab. Contributing guides, changelogs, license files, and wiki pages all use Markdown. Static site generators like Jekyll, Hugo, Gatsby, and Astro use Markdown files as the content source for pages.
When writing documentation in Markdown, structure matters more than styling. Use headings consistently (H2 for main sections, H3 for subsections). Keep paragraphs short. Use code blocks for any terminal commands, configuration snippets, or API examples. Use tables for structured data like configuration options or API parameters. Use task lists for setup steps or checklists.
The auto-save feature in this editor stores your document in localStorage, so you do not lose work if you close the tab. The word and character count in the toolbar updates as you type, which is useful when writing to a length target.
No. The Markdown parser is built from scratch in JavaScript. It handles headings, bold, italic, strikethrough, links, images, inline code, fenced code blocks, blockquotes, ordered lists, unordered lists, task lists, GFM tables, horizontal rules, and line breaks. No marked.js, showdown, or any other dependency is loaded.
Yes. The editor saves your Markdown to your browser's localStorage every two seconds while you type. If you close the tab and reopen the page, your last draft is restored automatically. The auto-save badge in the export bar shows the save status. No data is sent to any server.
The built-in syntax highlighter applies basic keyword, string, comment, and number coloring for JavaScript, TypeScript, Python, HTML, CSS, Go, Rust, Java, C, C++, PHP, Ruby, SQL, Bash, and JSON. The highlighting covers common patterns (keywords, quoted strings, line and block comments, numbers) but is not a full lexer. For production code highlighting, a dedicated library would provide more accuracy.
The browser's built-in print function handles PDF export. Click Download .html, open the downloaded file in your browser, then use Ctrl+P (or Cmd+P on macOS) and select "Save as PDF" as the destination. This preserves the formatting from the preview. Alternatively, you can use the preview-only view mode and print directly from this page.
No. All parsing and rendering happens locally in your browser. Nothing is uploaded, tracked, or logged. The auto-save uses localStorage, which is stored on your device only. You can verify this by checking the Network tab in your browser's developer tools while using the editor.