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

See Also