Getting Started

The Markdown Editor is a fully local, browser-based writing tool. Your documents are never sent to a server — everything stays in your browser or on your local file system.

Type Markdown in the left pane and see a live preview on the right. Use the toolbar buttons or keyboard shortcuts to format text, manage files, and access features.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Saving Files

Save — First save opens a system dialog to name and place the file. Subsequent saves write silently to the same file with a brief ✓ confirmation.

Save As — Always opens the dialog so you can save a copy under a new name or location.

Format on Save — When checked, the editor automatically cleans your Markdown on save: trims trailing spaces, fixes headings missing a space after #, and collapses runs of blank lines. Uncheck in the toolbar to save raw.

Auto-save — Your work is continuously saved to browser storage so nothing is lost if you close the tab unexpectedly. Use Recent Files to reopen a previous document.

Opening Files

Open — Opens a system file picker. Supports .md, .markdown, and .txt files.

Drag & Drop — Drag any .md or .txt file from your file explorer and drop it onto the editor to open it instantly.

Recent Files — Click Recent ▾ in the top bar to reopen files you have worked on previously. Click Clear history to reset the list.

Find & Replace

Press Ctrl+F to open the Find & Replace bar above the editor.

• Aa — Match case toggle
• .* — Regular expression toggle
• Replace / All — Replace the current match or all matches at once. Replace All is undoable with Ctrl+Z.
• Case-preserving replace — When Match Case is off, replacements follow the capitalisation of the original word (Section → Chapter, section → chapter).

Multiple Tabs

Click + in the tab bar to open a new blank document. Each tab is independent — switching tabs preserves the content, cursor position, and scroll of every open document. Click × on a tab to close it; closing the last tab opens a fresh welcome document.

Document Outline

Click ☰ Outline in the toolbar to open a table of contents panel on the left. The outline lists all headings in the document with indentation reflecting their level. Click any heading to scroll the preview to that section.

Table Editor

Click ⊟ Table in the toolbar to open the visual table editor. Build your table by filling in cells, then use + Col, − Col, + Row, and − Row to adjust size. Use the alignment buttons (L / C / R) on each column header to set left, centre, or right alignment. Click Insert Table to place the finished Markdown table at your cursor.

Image Drop

Drag an image file (.png, .jpg, .gif, .webp) from your desktop directly into the editor. The image is embedded as a Base64 data URI at your cursor position, so the Markdown file remains self-contained with no external dependencies.

Paste as Markdown

When you paste formatted content copied from a web page, the editor automatically converts it to clean Markdown — headings, bold, italic, links, and lists are all preserved. Plain text pastes work as normal.

Word Goal & Status Bar

The status bar at the bottom shows live word count, character count, line count, and estimated reading time. Click the word count to set a word goal — a progress bar appears above the status bar showing how close you are. Click the word count again and choose Clear to remove the goal.

Preview Theme

Click ☾ Preview in the toolbar to toggle the preview pane between light and dark themes. The editor itself remains dark at all times. Use the Preview checkbox to hide or show the preview pane entirely.

Focus Mode

Click ◇ Focus or press F11 to enter distraction-free writing mode. All toolbars, panels, and the preview pane are hidden. The editor expands to fill the screen with a comfortable centred column. Press Esc or F11 to return to the normal view.

Custom CSS

Click ✏ CSS in the toolbar to open the Custom CSS editor. Styles entered here are applied live to the preview pane and are also included when you print or export to HTML. Target .markdown-body to style document content. Your CSS is saved automatically and persists across sessions. Click Clear → Apply to remove it.

Example:

.markdown-body h1 { color: #c0392b; }
.markdown-body a  { color: #2980b9; }

Print & Export

Print — Opens a print dialog where you can choose page size, orientation, margins, font size, and whether to preserve syntax highlight colours. Sends to your system print dialog, which includes any installed network printers.

HTML — Exports a standalone .html file containing your rendered document with all styles and syntax highlighting embedded. Open it in any browser without the editor.

Markdown Reference