MDown

Markdown, rendered the way you meant it.

MDown is a small native reader for markdown files. It opens instantly, scrolls a whole document without pagination, renders embedded HTML, and sizes table columns to their contents. Press Ctrl+E and the source appears beside the render, so you can fix a line and watch it change.

curl -fsSL https://mdown.org/install.sh | sh

Latest release 1.2.0, 2026-08-07.

MDown with the markdown source on the left and the rendered document on the right

Reads like a document

One continuous scroll, headings and lists and code styled properly, no chrome in the way.

Tables that fit

Columns take the width their contents need, and long values wrap inside their cell instead of spilling across the table.

Edit in place

The editor puts the source beside a live render. Type, watch it update, and Ctrl+S writes the file.

Embedded HTML

Headings, tables, links, images, <kbd>, <mark>, colours and centred blocks are rendered, not printed as tags.

Export anywhere

Print from the app, or use the online editor to take a document to PDF, Word, or OpenDocument.

Android is coming

The same documents, read the same way, on a phone. Not released yet.

Install

One line, no root. It picks the right build for your architecture and puts it in ~/.local, with a menu entry and the mdown command.

curl -fsSL https://mdown.org/install.sh | sh

Prefer a package? The downloads page has the .deb and the portable tarball for x86_64 and ARM64. Windows and macOS build from source; see the build guide.