Markdown Preview

About the Markdown preview

Markdown is the least painful way to write documentation, guides and READMEs — plain text, easy to edit, easy to version control. The catch is you can't see the result while you write. This tool fills that gap: type on the left, see it on the right.

Supported syntax

• Headings: one to six # at the start of a line for H1 to H6. Note the space after the # is required.
• Emphasis: *italic*, **bold**, ***bold italic***, ~~strikethrough~~.
• Lists: - or * starts an unordered list, 1. an ordered one; indent with four spaces or a tab to nest.
• Task lists: - [ ] todo and - [x] done render as checkboxes.
• Tables: cells separated by pipes, the second row using --- to mark the header, with colons controlling alignment.
• Code: inline code wrapped in backticks; multi-line code fenced with three backticks, optionally followed by a language name.
• Blockquotes: a leading >, nestable.
• Links and images: [text](url) and ![alt](url).
• Horizontal rule: three or more -, * or _ on a line of their own.

How to write a table

Tables are the part of Markdown people get wrong most often. The format is:

| Name  | Team     | Amount |
|:------|:--------:|-------:|
| Alice | Engineering | 1200 |
| Bob   | Marketing   |  980 |

Three points: both the header row and the separator row are required; the colons in the separator control alignment (left colon for left, both for centre, right colon for right); and it's best to keep the number of pipes consistent per row — rendering survives inconsistency, but the source is easier to read when it lines up.

Language tags on code blocks

Putting a language name after the three backticks (like ```javascript) makes most editors apply syntax highlighting. This tool gives a corresponding style hint from the language name while preserving the original text, so you can copy it elsewhere.

Note that content inside a code block is not parsed as Markdown, so writing # or asterisks there is safe — they won't turn into headings or italics. That's exactly why pasting error logs or config files belongs in a code block.

The line-break trap

In standard Markdown, a single line break does not produce a line break — you need a blank line for a new paragraph, or two trailing spaces for a forced break. That's awkward for Chinese writers, who are used to breaking lines freely.

So this tool ticks "single line break also breaks" by default, which matches intuition. If you're producing a document that has to be strictly standard-compliant (to feed a static site generator, for instance), untick it.

When to use Markdown

• Good fit: technical documentation, READMEs, meeting notes, requirements, blog drafts, personal notes — anything content-heavy, layout-light and maintained over time.
• Less good: formal documents needing fine layout control, mixed text and images, or multi-column design. A traditional word processor is more direct for those.

Export and migration

There are three exits:

• Copy Markdown: the plain-text source, pasteable anywhere Markdown is supported.
• Copy HTML: the rendered HTML fragment, ready to embed in your own page. Note it carries no stylesheet — you supply the CSS to make it look good.
• Download .md: saved as a file for version control or archiving.

Everything happens in the browser and nothing you write leaves your machine. To verify, open the Network panel with F12 — typing sends no requests at all.

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