Markdown Previewer

Markdown Previewer — Write and Preview Markdown Instantly

Markdown is everywhere you find technical writing: GitHub README files, documentation sites, blog posts, note-taking apps like Notion and Obsidian, and messaging tools like Slack. If you write Markdown but your editor doesn't show a rendered preview, this tool fills that gap. Write on the left, see the HTML output on the right in real time.

What is Markdown?

Markdown is a plain text formatting syntax created by John Gruber in 2004. The idea is that you can write text with simple punctuation marks that indicate formatting, and those marks translate to clean HTML when rendered. A line starting with # becomes an H1 heading. Text wrapped in **double asterisks** becomes bold. A hyphen at the start of a line becomes a list item.

The reason Markdown became so popular is that it's readable even in its raw form. A plain text file with Markdown formatting is easy to read and edit without a special editor, unlike HTML or XML where tags clutter the content.

How to use this previewer

Type or paste your Markdown into the left panel. The right panel updates in real time to show what the rendered output will look like. When you're satisfied, use the "Copy HTML" button to get the rendered HTML source — useful for pasting into a CMS, an email template, or any system that accepts HTML but not Markdown directly.

You can also download the Markdown file itself using the "Download .md" button if you want to save your work. There's no auto-save — if you close the tab, the content is gone. Download your file before leaving if the content matters.

Common Markdown syntax quick reference

# Heading 1, ## Heading 2, ### Heading 3 — headings. **bold** — bold text. *italic* — italic. `inline code` — inline code. Three backticks on their own line start and end a fenced code block; add a language name after the first three backticks for syntax highlighting (e.g., ```python). - item or * item — unordered list. 1. item — ordered list. [link text](URL) — hyperlink. ![alt text](image-URL) — image. > text — blockquote. --- on its own line — horizontal rule.

Common use cases

Writing GitHub README files: Every GitHub project has a README. Markdown is GitHub's native format for these. Use this previewer to write and check your README before pushing, since GitHub's own preview is only available after committing.

Technical documentation: Teams that write docs in Markdown (common with Jekyll, Hugo, MkDocs, or Docusaurus sites) can draft and check formatting here before pushing to their docs repository.

Blog posts for static site generators: Hugo, Jekyll, Gatsby, and Astro all accept Markdown posts. If your static site generator isn't running locally, this previewer shows you exactly how the content will render.

Converting Markdown to HTML for emails: Some email workflows accept HTML but not Markdown. Write in Markdown for readability, convert here, and paste the HTML into your email template builder.

Learning Markdown: If you're new to Markdown, the live preview makes it immediately clear what each syntax element does. Change something and see the result instantly — no guessing.

Developer documentation in India: As more Indian startups and open-source projects build their documentation, Markdown fluency is increasingly expected of developers, technical writers, and DevRel teams. This tool helps you get comfortable with the format without needing a local setup.

Tips

If your output looks wrong, check for stray spaces before syntax markers. Markdown is whitespace-sensitive in places — a list only renders as a list if the - is at the very start of the line with no leading spaces (or with consistent indentation for nested lists).

Tables work in most Markdown flavours. The syntax is pipes separating columns and a row of dashes under the header: | Col 1 | Col 2 |. This previewer renders GitHub Flavored Markdown tables correctly.

Blank lines matter. A paragraph is text separated from adjacent text by a blank line above and below. Without the blank line, two sentences that look like separate lines in your editor may render as one paragraph in HTML.

Limitations

This previewer uses the marked.js library, which supports GitHub Flavored Markdown (GFM). It does not support Markdown extensions specific to individual platforms — for instance, Notion's callout blocks or Obsidian's wiki-style double-bracket links. Custom extensions that depend on a specific static site generator (like Hugo shortcodes) won't render here either.

There's no collaboration or sharing feature. It's a solo drafting tool. For team collaboration on Markdown documents, dedicated tools like HackMD or a shared GitHub repository are more appropriate.