Manual

Making MarkEdit the Default

As a sandboxed app, MarkEdit cannot set itself as the default app for opening Markdown files. Here's how to set it manually:

• Select a Markdown file in Finder
• Press ⌘ I
• Select MarkEdit in the Open with: section
• Click Change All... and confirm

Preview Mode

For HTML preview functionality, including side-by-side view, refer to the MarkEdit-preview extension.

Inline Predictive Text

MarkEdit fully supports inline predictions on macOS Sonoma.

You can also press the right Option key to accept a suggestion without adding any punctuation.

Writing Tools

MarkEdit also fully supports Writing Tools on macOS Sequoia.

The system provides several ways to access Writing Tools, and you can also customize the toolbar like this:

Writing Tools are available on all ARM-based Macs (Apple silicon). See Apple's documentation to learn more.

Command-line Tool to Open Files

MarkEdit doesn't have a built-in command-line tool, but you can open a file from Terminal with:

open -a MarkEdit /file/path.md

You can create a shell alias to use it as markedit /file/path.md:

alias markedit="open -a MarkEdit"

Alternatively, you could also add this script to /usr/local/bin/markedit:

#!/bin/bash

open -a MarkEdit $1

After running chmod 755 on this file, you can use markedit /file/path.md to open files. Learn more.

Navigating Table of Contents

When working with large documents, you can navigate between section headings using these keyboard shortcuts:

• ⇧ ⌘ O to open the menu (and arrow keys to navigate)
• ⌥ ⌘ ↑ to select the previous section
• ⌥ ⌘ ↓ to select the next section

Note

The ⇧ ⌘ O shortcut requires the Table of Contents item to be available on the toolbar.

Multi-caret Editing

You can easily create multiple selections by holding ⌘ while selecting text.

MarkEdit also lets you select a rectangular block of text by holding ⌥ while selecting.

Tip

You can also right-click and choose Select All Occurrences to edit every occurrence at once.

Code Folding

Hover over the line-number gutter to fold section headings, code blocks, and other elements.

Word Completion

MarkEdit supports word completion. Press option-esc or fn-F5 to complete your input:

In this mode, use the arrow keys (or ctrl-n and ctrl-p) to navigate between items, enter or tab to accept a suggestion, and esc to dismiss the panel.

If you rely on this feature heavily, it's recommended to enable Suggest while typing:

Tip

MarkEdit also autocompletes internal anchors (type #), footnotes (type ^), and files (type . or /) inside links.

Built-in Text Checker

MarkEdit supports all native text-checking features. You can toggle them from Spelling and Grammar in the Edit menu.

If you rely heavily on automatic spelling correction, we recommend setting Render Invisibles to selection for better autocorrect performance.

Tip

Alternatively, right-click in the editing area to access these options.

Statistics View

MarkEdit has a built-in statistics view:

To keep the UI clean, this view is hidden by default. To enable it, right-click the toolbar and select Customize Toolbar:

You can also open it by pressing ⇧ ⌘ I. Press the shortcut again to dismiss it.

Custom Statistics Rules

Define custom counting rules for the Statistics panel in:

~/Library/Containers/app.cyan.markedit/Data/Documents/statistics-rules.json

Each rule has three fields:

Field	Type	Description
title	String	Label shown in the Statistics panel
icon	String	SF Symbol name
pattern	String	Regular expression pattern to match

Rules with zero matches are automatically hidden. Example:

[
  {
    "title": "CJK Characters",
    "icon": "character.textbox.zh",
    "pattern": "[\\p{Han}\\u{3000}-\\u{303F}\\u{FF01}-\\u{FF60}\\u{FE30}-\\u{FE4F}\\u{2018}-\\u{201F}\\u{2013}\\u{2014}\\u{2026}]"
  }
]

Using URL Schemes

You can open MarkEdit from other apps using the URL scheme markedit://.

To create new files, set parameters like this:

markedit://new-file?filename=[filename]&initial-content=[initial-content]

Both filename and initial-content are optional and must be properly URL-encoded.

To bring up the open panel, use:

markedit://open

To open a file with its path, use:

markedit://open?path=[file-path]

To install extensions, use:

markedit://install-extension?id=[id]
markedit://install-extension?url=[url]

See MarkEdit Extensions for examples.

System Extensions

Quick Look Extension

MarkEdit has a Quick Look extension that provides syntax highlighting for Markdown files in Finder.

To enable it, go to System Settings > General > Login Items & Extensions and make sure MarkEdit's Quick Look extension is enabled.

The Quick Look extension is intentionally kept simple. It is much smaller than the main app, does not include every feature, and does not share the main app's configuration.

Note

It may not work in some cases, check #448 for details.

With the latest MarkEdit-preview extension, Quick Look can also render Markdown as HTML.

Finder Extension

MarkEdit has a Finder extension for quickly creating untitled text files from either the contextual menu or the toolbar.

To enable it, go to System Settings > General > Login Items & Extensions and make sure MarkEdit's File Provider extension is enabled.

Warning

This feature is deprecated and will be removed from the app. See #1627 for details.

Pandoc

MarkEdit doesn't support exporting Markdown files to formats such as PDF or Microsoft Word. Instead, you can copy Pandoc commands in MarkEdit and paste them into Terminal to run them.

We cannot improve on what Pandoc already does. If you write Markdown on macOS, you should try Pandoc. For detailed instructions, refer to its official user manual.

The Pandoc defaults file is located at ~/Library/Containers/app.cyan.markedit/Data/Documents/pandoc.yaml. You can change its options and variables to suit your needs.

Tip

See #1464 for math rendering preferences.

You can also use mdfmt, created by @mnott. More details are available here.

Customizing The Editor

MarkEdit keeps the UI clean while still providing a subtle way to customize the app through these files:

~/Library/Containers/app.cyan.markedit/Data/Documents/editor.css
~/Library/Containers/app.cyan.markedit/Data/Documents/editor.js
~/Library/Containers/app.cyan.markedit/Data/Documents/settings.json

For details, please check out Customization.

Shortcuts Remapping

By leveraging the App Shortcuts feature provided by macOS, you can assign a key combination to a function, as long as it is available as a menu bar item. For example:

Learn more: Create keyboard shortcuts for apps on Mac.

Resetting Preferences

To discard your settings changes and return to the initial state, run this command and restart the app:

defaults delete app.cyan.markedit

Note

The preferences file will be re-created, and other user data, such as documents, will not be affected.

Advanced Topics

If you would like to manipulate text like a Pro, please check out MarkEdit-api and Text Processing.