MarkdownBeautiful
A beautiful Markdown reader
Markdown, the way it deserves to be read.
A reader for the Markdown files you already have: READMEs, specs, notes, and the plans your AI agent writes. Open one and it is typeset as a document, with tables, math, diagrams and highlighted code, and it stays current while the file changes.
$4.99 (US), one time, on the Mac App Store · macOS 15 or later
Why we made it
AI coding agents absolutely love to create Markdown files. It's a capable open standard that communicates lots of information easily. But opened directly, it reads like cryptic source code. No one wants that. We want our Markdown to look beautiful. So we created MarkdownBeautiful to do exactly that. The best part? It stays beautiful in real time even as you or the agent are making changes to the file.
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Diagrams from plain text
Mermaid diagrams are drawn right in the document: here a mindmap, written as a few lines of text.
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Make it yours
Reading settings sit one click away in the toolbar: 19 themes, any installed font, text size, line spacing, reading width and zoom.
What it does
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Properly typeset
GitHub-style Markdown with tables, task lists, footnotes, strikethrough and definition lists. Callouts, including collapsible ones. Math, inline and display. Mermaid diagrams: flowcharts, sequence, class, state, Gantt, pie and mindmaps. Syntax highlighting for about 80 languages, with a Copy button on each code block. Front matter and generated tables of contents.
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Always current
When another app or an AI agent changes the file, the page updates in place and keeps your place. Documents reopen where you left off.
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Press Space in the Finder
Quick Look shows a Markdown file rendered in your theme, the same Finder-first habit as our AAF Look. Mermaid (.mmd) files get rendered Finder thumbnails too.
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Make it yours
19 themes, light and dark, or follow the Mac's appearance. Any installed font, five reading widths, adjustable size and line spacing, and zoom per window.
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Find your way
An outline sidebar that tracks where you are, and the arrow keys to jump between sections. Find, word count, reading and speaking time, and readability. Tabs, drag and drop, and full keyboard control.
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Export and print
Export a paginated PDF in your theme, or a self-contained HTML file. Printing comes out on clean white paper.
MarkdownBeautiful only reads: it never writes to your files, and Open in Default Editor hands a file to your editor when you want to change it. It also opens code, JSON, CSV and TSV, Mermaid and plain-text files.
Privacy
Data Not Collected
Everything renders on your Mac. No account, no tracking, no data collected. Turn off Load images from the web in Settings › Rendering and documents can't contact any website. Finder thumbnails never use the network.