The Notepad equivalent for Markdown
A lightweight, minimalist Markdown viewer and text editor built for productivity across Windows, macOS, and Linux.
Website // Download // What Markpad renders // Report a Bug // 简体中文
Reading
- GitHub-styled rendering, with syntax highlighting in code blocks
- Maths (KaTeX) and diagrams (Mermaid)
- Table of contents that follows wherever you scroll
- Folding by heading, and a Zen mode with everything else out of the way
- Content zoom, custom typography, custom themes (VS Code themes import)
Editing
- Monaco — the editor from VS Code — with Vim mode
- Split view, kept in sync line for line
- Heading completion for links, and a customisable formatting toolbar
- Paste an image straight into the document; drag files in to open them
Documents
- Tabs, multiple windows, window tags, and a session that comes back
- Auto-reload when a file changes on disk
- Export to HTML, print to PDF
- Wikilinks, embeds and callouts alongside standard Markdown — see What Markpad renders below
The rest
- Windows, macOS and Linux
- ~10MB of memory, no telemetry, free and open source
- 26 interface languages
choco install markpad-appsudo snap install markpad Every file below is on the latest release page, and on markpad.sftwr.dev.
| System | Chip | File | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Windows | Intel / AMD | Markpad_x.y.z_x64-setup.exe |
installer |
| Intel / AMD | Markpad_x.y.z_x64.exe |
portable, no installation | |
| ARM64 | Markpad_x.y.z_arm64-setup.exe |
installer | |
| ARM64 | Markpad_x.y.z_arm64.exe |
portable | |
| macOS | Intel and Apple Silicon | Markpad_x.y.z_universal.dmg |
one file for both |
| Linux | x86-64 | Markpad_x.y.z_amd64.AppImage |
portable, no installation |
| x86-64 | Markpad_x.y.z_amd64.deb |
Debian, Ubuntu | |
| x86-64 | Markpad-x.y.z-1.x86_64.rpm |
Fedora, RHEL, openSUSE |
The two Windows files differ only in that one installs and one does not — -setup.exe puts Markpad in Program Files and the Start menu; the plain .exe runs from wherever you put it.
After a direct
.dmg(macOS),*-setup.exe(Windows NSIS) or.AppImage(Linux) install, Markpad self-updates from GitHub releases via the in-app Check for Updates… entry (macOS app menu, or Settings elsewhere). Snap, Chocolatey,.deband.rpmusers continue to update through their distribution channels.
Every syntax Markpad renders is in one document — download markdown-syntax.md and open it in Markpad: the preview shows each feature working, the editor beside it shows how each one is written (read it on GitHub first if you like). Give the same file to an AI and it knows exactly what Markpad can render: ask it to reformat a document you already have, or to write a new one that uses the whole range — callouts, tables, footnotes, maths, diagrams — and open the result here.
- Clone the repository
- Run
npm installto install dependencies - Run
npm run tauri buildto build the executable
For local verification without opening or replacing /Applications/Markpad.app, build an unsigned test-only app with an independent identifier:
MARKPAD_TEST_BUNDLE_ID=dev.example.markpad.test npm run build:test-bundleThe result is placed in dist/test-bundle/. It is not a distributable release: it has no Developer ID notarization or Windows Authenticode signature.
If you find a bug, have a feature request, or just want to leave some feedback, please open an issue. I'm actively developing Markpad and love hearing from users!
Contributions are always welcome! Markpad is built with SvelteKit and Tauri.
- Fork & Clone the repository
- Install dependencies:
npm install - Run the dev server:
npm run tauri dev(to run the Tauri app locally) - Make your changes and ensure type checking passes:
npm run check - Open a Pull Request!
Please ensure your code follows the existing style and that you add descriptions for any new features.
