Online Markdown Viewer
Read a Markdown file the way it is meant to look, with its contents beside it. Free, and runs entirely in your browser — nothing is uploaded.
About Markdown Viewer
Markdown as it is meant to be read: headings, lists, tables, fenced code, task lists, block quotes and images, with a list of the headings above it to jump by. Drop a .md file onto it or paste the text — a README, a changelog, a set of notes, the body of a pull request.
The reason to reach for it is that Markdown is written to be read as plain text and almost never is. A file arrives in an email or a chat message, and the choice is reading it with the pipes and asterisks in the way or pushing it through something that renders it — which for most people means pasting a private document into a website.
Nothing is uploaded. The file is read by this page and rendered in this tab, which is the part that matters for a design document, an internal runbook or a draft nobody has seen yet.
HTML written inside the Markdown is shown as text rather than run. That is a deliberate limit rather than an oversight: the rendered output goes straight into the page you are looking at, so a document that could bring its own markup could bring its own script with it. The converter says how many blocks it escaped and on which lines, so nothing goes missing quietly.
Where it helps
- Renders the Markdown people actually write: GitHub tables, task lists, strikethrough, fenced code with a language.
- Builds a contents list from the headings, so a long document can be jumped through rather than scrolled.
- Reads a file directly, so a README does not have to be opened and copied out first.
- Counts words, headings, links, images, code blocks and tables, with a reading time.
- Runs entirely in this tab, so an internal document is never uploaded to be read.
Limits
- Raw HTML in the source is escaped and shown as text rather than rendered, which is the price of the output being safe to put on this page.
- Reference-style links, footnotes and definition lists are not supported; the inline link syntax is.
- Code blocks are not syntax-highlighted — the language is recorded on the element, but no highlighter is loaded.
- Relative image and link paths cannot resolve, because the file has no folder around it here.
- It stops at four megabytes, past which the browser is the bottleneck rather than the renderer.
Frequently asked questions
Is my file uploaded anywhere?
No. It is read by this page and rendered in this tab. You can confirm it by opening the network panel, or by disconnecting after the page has loaded and using it anyway.
Why is the HTML I wrote showing as text?
Because this renderer escapes it rather than passing it through. The output is inserted into the page you are on, and a document that can bring its own markup can bring its own script. The note under the result says how many blocks were escaped and where.
Why did a link disappear?
Its address used a scheme that is not safe to render, such as javascript:. The link text is kept and the note under the result names the line. Ordinary http, https, mailto and relative links are untouched.
Which flavour of Markdown does it read?
CommonMark's common ground plus the GitHub extensions people actually write — pipe tables, task lists and strikethrough. Reference links, footnotes and definition lists are not covered.
Why do my single line breaks disappear?
That is Markdown's own rule: one newline inside a paragraph is a space, and two make a new paragraph. Turn on “Every newline is a line break” for text written in a comment box, where the other rule applies.
Related tools
- Markdown to HTML — Convert Markdown to HTML you can paste somewhere, with the rendered page beside it
- Markdown to PDF — Set Markdown as it renders: headings, emphasis, lists, code, quotes and tables
- PDF to Markdown — Convert a PDF into Markdown with its headings, emphasis, lists, tables and pictures
- Word Counter — Count words, characters, sentences and reading time
- Case Converter — Switch between sentence, camel, snake and other cases
- Text Comparison — Line-by-line diff of two blocks of text
More Text Tools tools
- Markdown to HTML — Convert Markdown to HTML you can paste somewhere, with the rendered page beside it
- Case Converter — Switch between sentence, camel, snake and other cases
- Word Counter — Count words, characters, sentences and reading time
- Text Comparison — Line-by-line diff of two blocks of text
- Duplicate Remover — Remove, isolate or list duplicate lines
- Whitespace Remover — Trim, collapse and normalise whitespace
- Sort Lines — Sort lines alphabetically, naturally, by number or length, reverse them, or shuffle them