what is the simplest MarkDown viewer ?

Posted by UinguZero@reddit | linux | View on Reddit | 42 comments

I really like markdown, and I use Obsidian as my markdown note taking app.

However, I sometimes just want to view an .md file without any hassle.

So like some normal txt files, which I just open in kate/gedit to quick view them, instead of vscode, I want to do the same with md files

to edit a .md them I'll open them in obisidan or code, but which is the simplest .md viewer you use ?

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thisisleobro@reddit

In case someone still needs it. I wrote markview, a simple markdow viewer written in c

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ekizahmet@reddit

MARKTEXT is a simple one. I think it needs a better GUI, but it's simple and good. Additionally, it is an MIT-licensed open-source project.

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aioeu@reddit

Wasn't the philosophy of markdown that it was supposed to be "publishable as-is, as plain text"? It seems a bit weird to need a special viewer for it.

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No, that is an incorrect assumption. Like any other tool, markdown is for your convenience. I prefer documenting my deployment steps as markdown in an ascii editor, and I often use backticks (`) to indicate cli commands so that when I am redeploying, I just do a quick C-c/C-v combo from the markdown reader. Doing the same from the "raw" markdown file would make my task very difficult, not to mention accidentally changing my doc file.

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aioeu@reddit

It's not my assumption. It's what its original inventor said.

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najeeb1010@reddit

Read the link you posted carefully. Even assuming it's canonical, the philosophy does not preclude use cases like reading from a reader.

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aioeu@reddit

Also doesn't preclude you from wearing a funny hat and yodeling while reading your documentation.

Point is, if your Markdown is so heavily marked up that reading it in a special viewer is preferable, you're probably better off using a different markup language altogether. At least, if you can...

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najeeb1010@reddit

Yes, and it also doesn't preclude you from making silly and irrelevant comments about funny hats and yodelling when you have nothing else to say. Becoming dogmatic about a philosophy and hiding behind it to stick to a point is what makes wearing funny hats look milder. In case you haven't understood, any markup is extraneous over and above the content: it's just a matter of degree and depends how you define "heavy." Ultimately, a reader is a convenient way of reading it; discouraging their use is extreme.

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hannes20002@reddit

Technically you are right but some viewers automatically convert markdown elements into "real" headings, tables etc

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--pedant@reddit

They are technically wrong, according to the actual philosophy stated on the page from the link.

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maximilionus@reddit

r/UsernameChecksOut

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kennel32_@reddit

No, it's you are who is wrong. Philosophy says that the markdown syntax should be readable and writable as-is (to the contrary to html syntax which is pretty much unreadable). Display view is not defined in the philosophy section.

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Ill-Ad2009@reddit

I fail to see the purpose of this distinction. No one would use a markdown viewer that renders your text file as-is when they can just use CAT or open their editor of choice. It's also not against the philosophy of markdown to write something that converts it into something else for rendering, as long as the original file is preserved.

username does not check out.

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--pedant@reddit

Nope. Either you made an accuracy* mistake, or you are being disingenuous. I'll go with mistake, as most people make mistakes like this where two ideas are not mutually exclusive.

The direct quote (from your link) is "should be publishable as-is..." (emphasis mine), and not "supposed to be 'publishable as-is, as plain text'...."

The idea is that it should be readable as plain text, not that it has to be, nor supposed to be. And either way, it doesn't matter what the philosophy was; what matters is how users want to view a document. Readers can choose plain text (markdown is great for this), or as fancy as they want (markdown is great for this), according to their personal philosophy.

^(* Accuracy matters when quoting.)

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dougs1965@reddit

This, absolutely. I use cat, more, or less -- and occasionally vi.
With the advantage that they're pretty much guaranteed to be installed on any machine you find yourself in front of -- even in a rescue initramfs.

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kriebz@reddit

A nice thing about more: it doesn't clear the screen when you exit, making it easier to mouse-paste. A nice thing about less: press 'v' to open the same file in $VISUAL at the current line.

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Past_Cookie_1726@reddit

Use "less -X" to not have it clear the screen

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eternaloctober@reddit

I have this alias in my zshrc


function md() {
  pandoc $1 > /tmp/$1.html
  xdg-open /tmp/$1.html
}

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Icy_Visit_7581@reddit

minor adjustment to handle files in any location (e.g. md $HOME/Downloads/README.md):

function md() {
  local name=$(basename $1) 
  pandoc $1 > /tmp/$name.html
  xdg-open /tmp/$name.html
}

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dcnjbwiebe@reddit

Thanks for the tip!

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Disastrous-Minute184@reddit

What does this do?

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va9iff@reddit

uses pandoc to generate a temporary html file from markdown, then opens it in a browser.

I also added custom styles for the generated html. here's the snipped

pandoc $1 -s -c ~/linuv/assets/gruvbox-html-style-for-markdown-generated.css \
 -o /tmp/pandocRenderedStyledMD.html
xdg-open /tmp/pandocRenderedStyledMD.html

beware, my script uses a hard coded name for the html file, so the next time you open another md file, the previous one will be replaced with the new one
(your css file should be in ~/linuv/assets/gruvbox-html-style-for-markdown-generated.css but you may ask why - it's just my configuration)

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LeoCraft6@reddit

mdts might be exactly what you're looking for - ultimate simplicity:

npx mdts

That's it. No installation, no configuration, no setup. Just run it in any directory with markdown files and you get:

Clean web interface with file browser
Live reload when you edit files
Works on any Linux distro (just needs Node.js)
21 built-in themes if you want customization
Supports all modern markdown features (Mermaid, math, etc.)

Perfect for the "I just want to preview my markdown files quickly" use case.

GitHub: https://github.com/unhappychoice/mdts

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OpeningGloomy7372@reddit

Try out the Markdown Reader browser extension to easily preview markdown files in your browser.

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aristok11222@reddit

GLOW, by default show the md file in the terminal.

to get a gui-like bheavior like kate/kwrite, it's possible to set kde/konqueror to run , on click on markdown file, the bash glow comman in the terminal on click , and dont exit the terminal.

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