Free online Markdown editor with live preview
Write Markdown on the left and watch the finished document build itself on the right — nested lists, task lists, tables, footnotes and highlighted code, all parsed inside your own tab.
How it works
Write, paste or open a file
Type straight into the editor, paste from the clipboard, drop a .md file on the workspace, or start from one of the skeletons. A file that arrives waits in a tray until you say whether it replaces your text or is appended to it.
Watch it render as you type
The document is parsed off the main thread and the preview keeps pace with the caret. Scrolling one pane moves the other, so what you are editing is always the part you are looking at.
Pick how it should look
Five preview themes, from a plain GitHub page to a typewriter sheet. The theme is not just decoration for the screen: it travels into the exported HTML file and onto the printed page.
Take it with you
Download the Markdown, a standalone HTML file, or a PDF with none of this page's furniture on it. Or send the document straight to another oLoveTools tool without a round trip through your downloads folder.
A real parser, not a pile of regexes
The document is turned into a syntax tree and only then into HTML, so nested lists keep their nesting, a stray pipe in a sentence is not read as a table, and snake_case_names stay intact instead of sprouting italics.
Code blocks with syntax colours
Fenced blocks are highlighted for over twenty languages, from JavaScript and Python to SQL, YAML and Dockerfiles. The grammars are only fetched once a document actually contains code.
Preview that keeps up
Parsing runs in a Web Worker, so the caret never stutters on a long README. If workers are blocked, the same code runs inline and the preview still renders.
Themes that survive the export
Slate, GitHub Light, Clean Journal, Retro Typewriter and Cyberpunk Neon. The stylesheet used on screen is the one written into the exported file, so what you downloaded looks like what you saw.
Exports that are actually usable
Copy semantic HTML with no framework classes, copy formatted text for an email, download a standalone page, or print a PDF containing the document and nothing else — no header, no toolbar, no ads.
An outline built from your headings
Every heading gets a stable anchor and appears in a clickable outline, so a long specification is navigable while you are still writing it.
Undo that stores edits, not copies
The history keeps only the characters that changed, so hundreds of undo steps over a long document cost kilobytes instead of megabytes. Your draft is also saved locally between visits.
Chained with the rest of the suite
Send the finished document to WordFlow to check the prose, to DiffSnap to compare two drafts, or to TTS-Bolt to hear it read aloud — without downloading and re-uploading anything.
Everything happens inside your tab
There is no upload step and no account. The parser, the syntax highlighter, the themes and every export run as JavaScript in your browser, which is why the tool works with the network unplugged. Your draft is saved to this browser's local storage so a refresh does not lose it, and clearing your browser data is all it takes to remove it — nothing was ever sent anywhere to delete.
Private by construction
Unpublished drafts, internal documentation and client notes are exactly the sort of text that should not be pasted into somebody else's server. Here there is nowhere for it to go: the document never leaves the page it is typed on.
Built for documents that have to leave the editor
Draft a project README with its options table and code samples, keep meeting notes with task lists that show what is still open, write a changelog, or lay out a blog post with front matter before it goes into a static site generator. The outline panel turns a long document into something you can jump around in, and the word count and reading-time estimate tell you when a post is long enough.
MarkdownLive is a side-by-side Markdown editor that renders as you type. It supports the GitHub-flavoured syntax people actually write: nested and task lists, tables with alignment, footnotes, strikethrough, highlights, autolinks, setext headings, front matter and fenced code blocks with syntax colouring. The editor helps as you go, continuing lists on Enter, indenting with Tab, wrapping a selection in bold or italics from the keyboard, and turning a pasted URL into a link around whatever you had selected.
Frequently asked questions
QWhich Markdown syntax is supported?+
The GitHub-flavoured set: headings in both ATX (#) and setext (underline) form, bold, italic, strikethrough, highlight, inline code, fenced and indented code blocks, blockquotes that nest, ordered and unordered lists that nest, task lists, tables with per-column alignment, images, links, bare URLs, footnotes, horizontal rules, hard line breaks, backslash escapes, and YAML front matter, which is kept out of the rendered output.
QIs my document uploaded or stored on a server?+
No. Parsing, rendering, highlighting and every export run in your browser, and no part of the document is transmitted. The only copy that outlives the tab is the draft kept in this browser's local storage so a reload does not lose your work; clearing your browser data removes it.
QHow does 'Export PDF' work?+
It builds a clean copy of the document in your chosen theme and hands only that to the browser's print dialogue, where you choose 'Save as PDF'. The page's header, toolbar, ad slots and footer are not part of what gets printed — you get the document, on white paper, with page breaks kept out of the middle of code blocks and tables.
QWhat is the difference between 'Copy HTML' and 'Copy formatted'?+
'Copy HTML' puts the markup on the clipboard as text: semantic tags with no framework classes, ready to paste into a CMS, a template or an email builder. 'Copy formatted' puts the document on the clipboard as rich text, so pasting into a word processor, a document or a mail client keeps the headings, bold and lists rather than showing angle brackets.
QCan I open a Markdown file I already have?+
Yes — use 'Open file' or drop it onto the workspace. Nothing is loaded behind your back: the file waits in a tray and you decide whether it replaces the editor or is appended to what is already there. The same applies to documents handed over from another oLoveTools tool.
QWhich keyboard shortcuts are there?+
Ctrl+B for bold, Ctrl+I for italics, Ctrl+E for inline code, Ctrl+K for a link around the selection, Ctrl+Z and Ctrl+Y for undo and redo. Tab and Shift+Tab indent and outdent the selected lines, and Enter continues a list, a numbered sequence or a blockquote — pressing it on an empty item ends the list instead of adding a dead bullet.
QHow large a document can it handle?+
Files up to 8 MB are accepted, which is far more than any hand-written document. Parsing happens in a Web Worker so the editor stays responsive on long files, and the undo history stores only the characters that changed rather than a copy of the document per step.