Markdown live preview
Type Markdown on the left and read it rendered on the right, updating as you go. Free, no sign-up, and nothing you write or paste leaves your browser.
Edit the Markdown — the rendered side follows
Result
Runs entirely in this tab. Open the full editor to work on a real document.
Open the full editor Tabs, file drop, exports — same preview, more room
Preview a file you already have
Drop a .md file anywhere on the editor and it
opens rendered, with a Contents panel built from its headings. Drop a
.docx, an .html file or a PDF and it is converted
to Markdown first, then previewed the same way. The file is read by your
browser with the FileReader API — the same thing that happens
when you open a photo — so it is never uploaded.
Three ways to read it
- Split — source and rendered side by side, the default
- Read — rendered only, for reading rather than writing
- Write — source only, for when the preview is a distraction
The divider between the panes drags, snaps to the usual ratios, and can stack the two vertically — useful on a phone, where side by side has no room to be readable.
What gets rendered
Everything in GitHub Flavored Markdown: headings, emphasis, links, images, ordered and unordered lists, nested lists, task lists, tables with alignment, blockquotes, horizontal rules, footnotes, strikethrough, and fenced code blocks with syntax highlighting for the languages that realistically appear in documents. YAML front matter is detected and kept out of the rendered output, with a note saying how many lines were hidden.
Rendered output is sanitised before it reaches the page, and every link in a previewed document opens in a new tab with no handle back to this one. That matters more than it sounds: a Markdown file you were sent is untrusted input.
Why it works offline
Because there is nothing for it to ask a server for. The parser, the sanitiser and the syntax highlighter are all files your browser has already downloaded, and the preview is built from them locally. Install the editor as an app and it will open with no network at all — which is also the clearest demonstration that nothing was being sent anywhere.
Common questions
- How do I preview a Markdown file?
- Paste the Markdown into the box on this page, or open the editor and drop the .md file anywhere on it. The rendered version appears immediately beside the source. The file is read by your browser; it is not uploaded to be rendered.
- Is this a live preview?
- Yes. The rendered side updates as you type, with no button to press and no refresh. That is the same pipeline the full editor uses, so what you see here is what you get there.
- Which flavour of Markdown does it render?
- GitHub Flavored Markdown — headings, lists, links, images, tables, task lists, strikethrough, footnotes and fenced code blocks with syntax highlighting. YAML front matter is recognised and kept out of the rendered output.
- Can I read a Markdown file without editing it?
- Yes. Open the editor and switch to Read mode, which hides the source entirely and shows only the rendered document, with a Contents panel built from its headings. It is the closest thing here to a Markdown reader.
- Does previewing send my document anywhere?
- No. The Markdown is parsed and rendered by JavaScript in the page you are looking at. There is no server-side rendering, no upload and no account, which is why it keeps working with the network switched off.
- Will it look the same on GitHub?
- Structurally, yes — the same parser rules apply, so headings, lists, tables and code blocks land where you expect. Colours and spacing are this site's, not GitHub's, because those are theme choices rather than Markdown.