MacDown

Hello there! I’m MacDown, the open source Markdown editor for OS X.

Let me introduce myself.

Markdown and I

Markdown is a plain text formatting syntax created by John Gruber, aiming to provide a easy-to-read and feasible markup. The original Markdown syntax specification can be found here.

MacDown is created as a simple-to-use editor for Markdown documents. I render your Markdown contents real-time into HTML, and display them in a preview panel.

I support all the original Markdown syntaxes. But I can do so much more! Various popular but non-standard syntaxes can be turned on/off from the Markdown preference pane.

You can specify extra HTML rendering options through the Rendering preference pane.

You can customize the editor window to you liking in the Editor preferences pane:

You can configure various application (that's me!) behaviors in the General preference pane.

The Basics

Before I tell you about all the extra syntaxes and capabilities I have, I'll introduce you to the basics of standard markdown. If you already know markdown, and want to jump straight to learning about the fancier things I can do, I suggest you skip to the Markdown preference pane. Lets jump right in.

Line Breaks

To force a line break, put two spaces and a newline (return) at the end of the line.

• This two-line bullet won't break

• This two-line bullet
  will break

Here is the code:

* This two-line bullet 
won't break

* This two-line bullet  
will break

Strong and Emphasize

Strong: **Strong** or __Strong__ (Command-B)
Emphasize: *Emphasize* or _Emphasize_[^emphasize] (Command-I)

Headers (like this one!)

Header 1
========

Header 2
--------

or

# Header 1
## Header 2
### Header 3
#### Header 4
##### Header 5
###### Header 6

Links and Email

Inline

Just put angle brackets around an email and it becomes clickable: uranusjr@gmail.com
<uranusjr@gmail.com>

Same thing with urls: http://macdown.uranusjr.com
<http://macdown.uranusjr.com>

Perhaps you want to some link text like this: Macdown Website
[Macdown Website](http://macdown.uranusjr.com "Title") (The title is optional)

Reference style

Sometimes it looks too messy to include big long urls inline, or you want to keep all your urls together.

Make a link [a link][arbitrary_id] then on it's own line anywhere else in the file:
[arbitrary_id]: http://macdown.uranusjr.com "Title"

If the link text itself would make a good id, you can link like this [like this][], then on it's own line anywhere else in the file:
[like this]: http://macdown.uranusjr.com

Images

Inline

![Alt Image Text](path/or/url/to.jpg "Optional Title")

Reference style

![Alt Image Text][image-id]
on it's own line elsewhere:
[image-id]: path/or/url/to.jpg "Optional Title"

Lists

• Lists must be preceded by a blank line (or block element)
• Unordered lists start each item with a *
• - works too
  • Indent a level to make a nested list
    1. Ordered lists are supported.
    2. Start each item (number-period-space) like 1.
    3. It doesn't matter what number you use, I will render them sequentially
    4. So you might want to start each line with 1. and let me sort it out

Here is the code:

* Lists must be preceded by a blank line (or block element)
* Unordered lists start each item with a `*`
- `-` works too
    * Indent a level to make a nested list
        1. Ordered lists are supported.
        2. Start each item (number-period-space) like `1. `
        42. It doesn't matter what number you use, I will render them sequentially
        1. So you might want to start each line with `1.` and let me sort it out

Block Quote

Angle brackets > are used for block quotes.
Technically not every line needs to start with a > as long as there are no empty lines between paragraphs.
Looks kinda ugly though.

Block quotes can be nested.

Multiple Levels

Most markdown syntaxes work inside block quotes.

• Lists
• Links
• Etc.

Here is the code:

> Angle brackets `>` are used for block quotes.  
Technically not every line needs to start with a `>` as long as
there are no empty lines between paragraphs.  
> Looks kinda ugly though.
> > Block quotes can be nested.  
> > > Multiple Levels
>
> Most markdown syntaxes work inside block quotes.
>
> * Lists
> * [Links][arbitrary_id]
> * Etc.

Inline Code

Inline code is indicated by surrounding it with backticks:
`Inline code`

If your code has `backticks` that need to be displayed, you can use double backticks:
``Code with `backticks` `` (mind the spaces preceding the final set of backticks)

Block Code

If you indent at least four spaces or one tab, I'll display a code block.

print('This is a code block')
print('The block must be preceded by a blank line')
print('Then indent at least 4 spaces or 1 tab')
    print('Nesting does nothing. Your code is displayed Literally')

I also know how to do something called Fenced Code Blocks which I will tell you about later.

Horizontal Rules

If you type three asterisks *** or three dashes --- on a line, I'll display a horizontal rule: