MarkText is a popular free and open-source document editor designed exclusively for writing in Markdown. Like Typora, MarkText has a polished interface and a live editor that hides the Markdown formatting after you type it. The PDF and HTML export options are handy, as is the feature that allows you to copy text out of the editor as Markdown, HTML, or plaintext.
There are some minor annoyances. In several instances (noted below in the table), the appearance of the text in the application didn’t match the rendered output of the exported HTML and PDF. And as with Notion, it can be difficult to edit Markdown-formatted text after the live editor has converted it.
MarkText Markdown Support
MarkText provides support for the following Markdown elements.
| Element | Support | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Headings | Yes | |
| Paragraphs | Yes | |
| Line Breaks | Yes | There’s a discrepancy between the MarkText editor and the rendered output when you press the Return key once — that does not create a line break in the exported HTML and PDF. You must use trailing whitespace or a trailing backslash (\).
|
| Bold | Yes | |
| Italic | Yes | |
| Blockquotes | Yes | |
| Ordered Lists | Yes | |
| Unordered Lists | Yes | |
| Code | Yes | |
| Horizontal Rules | Yes | |
| Links | Yes | For some reason, angle brackets for URLs and email addresses are rendered literally in the MarkText editor. It’s a minor issue since the links are rendered correctly in the exported HTML and PDF. |
| Images | Yes | |
| Tables | Yes | |
| Fenced Code Blocks | Yes | |
| Syntax Highlighting | Yes | |
| Footnotes | Yes | |
| Heading IDs | No | |
| Definition Lists | No | |
| Strikethrough | Yes | You can use two tildes (~~word~~) or one tilde (~word~) — both work in the exported HTML and PDF even though the MarkText editor only renders strikethrough with two tildes.
|
| Task Lists | Yes | |
| Emoji (copy and paste) | Yes | |
| Emoji (shortcodes) | Yes | |
| Highlight | Yes | |
| Subscript | Yes | |
| Superscript | Yes | |
| Automatic URL Linking | Yes | |
| Disabling Automatic URL Linking | Yes | |
| HTML | Yes |