Markdown Viewer

Markdown is a lightweight way to format text with plain characters, such as asterisks for bold and pound signs for headings. Type or paste Markdown on the left and see it rendered as a formatted document, with an outline of the headings, a word count and reading time, and counts of links, lists, tables and code blocks. Copy the result as HTML to paste into a website or email template, or copy the Markdown itself.

The viewer runs entirely in your browser. Raw HTML in the source is shown as text rather than run, so pasting untrusted Markdown is safe.

**Hello**, *world* → bold Hello, italic world

The HTML produced is <p><strong>Hello</strong>, <em>world</em></p>. Paragraphs are separated by blank lines; a single line break inside a paragraph is joined into the same line, as most Markdown renderers do.

John Gruber created Markdown in 2004, but the original description left many details open, so tools behaved differently. CommonMark, published from 2014, is a precise specification that most modern tools follow. GitHub Flavored Markdown adds tables, task lists, strikethrough and automatic links on top of CommonMark. This viewer supports the common subset of these features used in READMEs, notes and documentation; advanced extras such as footnotes, nested lists and embedded HTML are not rendered.

• README files and documentation on GitHub, GitLab and Bitbucket.
• Note-taking apps such as Obsidian, Joplin and Bear.
• Chat and forum posts on platforms such as Slack, Discord and Reddit, which support parts of it.
• Static site generators and blogs that build pages from Markdown files.
• Writing that will later be converted to HTML, Word or PDF with tools like Pandoc.

The copied HTML uses plain elements such as h2, p, ul, table and code without inline styles or classes, so it takes on the look of wherever you paste it, whether a content management system, a newsletter tool or a web page. Links get rel="nofollow noopener" added for safety. If your platform accepts Markdown directly, paste the Markdown instead; many blogging tools, issue trackers and documentation systems convert it themselves, and keeping the source in Markdown makes later edits easier than editing HTML by hand.

Markdown is quickest when you stop reaching for the mouse. Type two asterisks on each side of a word for bold, start a line with a dash for a list, and press Enter twice to start a new paragraph. Numbered lists renumber themselves in the output, so you can write 1. on every line and still get 1, 2, 3. Tables do not need perfectly aligned pipes; the columns line up when rendered, and you can add or remove rows freely as long as each row starts and ends with a pipe.

Put a blank line before and after headings, lists, code blocks and tables so every renderer recognizes them. Use one top-level heading per document and do not skip levels, which also helps accessibility. Give code blocks a language name after the opening fence, such as js or python, so syntax highlighting works where supported. Write link text that makes sense out of context, rather than a vague "click here".