Windows · macOS · Linux · v0.1
MarkPad is a small Markdown reader and editor for Mac, Windows and Linux. It makes .md files feel like ordinary text files. Open one and it's already formatted, so you can read it, review it and change it straight away, without a heavy app or a paywall between you and a quick edit.
Windows 10 and later, macOS 13 and later. The .deb is for Debian 12 and Ubuntu 22.04 on, the .rpm for Fedora. Not sure which Mac you have? Apple menu, then About This Mac. Anything from 2020 on is almost certainly Apple silicon.
Nothing is signed, so the first launch needs one extra step on macOS and Windows: on macOS right-click the app and choose Open, on Windows click More info then Run anyway. Linux just installs. If it won't open at all, troubleshooting has the message you're looking at and what to do about it.
::: blocks :::
- Everything reachable from Ctrl/⌘K, no menu hunting
- Read the [spec](./spec.md) before filing anything
| Platform | Shell | Installer |
|----------|-------|-----------|
| Windows 10+ | WebView2 | 3.3 MB |
| macOS 13+ | WKWebView | 3.6 MB |
> These are plain .md files. If you delete MarkPad, they still open anywhere.
| Platform | Shell | Installer |
|---|---|---|
| Windows 10+ | WebView2 | 3.3 MB |
| macOS 13+ | WKWebView | 3.6 MB |
The Windows installer is 3.3 MB and the Mac ones are about the same. MarkPad uses the web view your computer already has, so there's little to download.
MarkPad uses the standard window on macOS and Windows, so snapping, minimising and switching between apps all work as you'd expect.
Everything you write is saved as a standard GitHub-flavoured Markdown file on your own disk, so any other editor can open it.
Here's what v0.1 can do.
Files open as formatted text and you edit them right there, so you never have to switch out of code view to see the result. If you want the raw Markdown, one command shows it.
Ctrl/⌘+K opens a list of every command. The menus have them too.
A 26px strip down the left edge with one tick per heading. It shows the shape of the document and takes far less room than a sidebar.
Open several files at once, or drag them in. The tabs you had open come back the next time you start the app.
Tables, LaTeX and Mermaid diagrams show up in a popover next to the cursor. There's also a full preview pane, which is off by default.
Export uses your system's print engine, so you don't need Pandoc or a LaTeX install.
It detects CRLF or LF when you open a file and saves it the same way. The status bar shows which one it is. A UTF-8 BOM is kept too.
Light and dark, switching when your system does. Diagrams and code blocks switch with it.
These are the limits the project sets itself. Only the installer size is checked automatically on every build. The rest are measured, and a change that goes over one gets fixed or dropped.
| Budget | Limit |
|---|---|
| Installer size, per platform | under 8 MB |
| Cold start to first keystroke | under 400 ms |
| Opening a 10 MB Markdown file | under 1 s |
| Typing latency in a 5 MB file | same as an empty file |
| Network requests while running | one, the update check |
We left these out to keep MarkPad a simple text editor.
MarkPad is a few megabytes and free to use. Your files stay as plain text, so you can stop using it whenever you like.
Free and MIT licensed. Built with Tauri and CodeMirror. Trouble installing? Read this first.