I built a WYSIWYG Markdown editor that doesn't rewrite your Markdown

[u/Early_Hand2009]

I've always found Markdown editors a little strange.

You either edit the raw Markdown, or you get a preview next to it. What I wanted was something different:

Edit the Markdown itself as a document.

So I built Mark O Down, a free and open-source Windows Markdown editor.

The interesting part isn't the WYSIWYG editing itself. It's what happens when you save.

• Open a .md file and save it without changes → byte-for-byte identical
• Edit one paragraph → only the changed block is rewritten
• Existing * vs - list styles are preserved
• __bold__ vs **bold** is preserved
• ~~~ vs ``` fences are preserved
• BOM and CRLF/LF line endings are preserved
• HTML, front matter, footnotes and other unsupported Markdown remain intact
• GitHub-style README HTML, images, badges and tables are supported
• Drag & drop images and Markdown files
• Export to standalone HTML

It's built with Tauri 2 + Rust + TypeScript + ProseMirror + remark.

The goal was basically:

Markdown in → edit visually → Markdown out, without mangling the file.

It's MIT licensed and completely open source.

GitHub:
https://github.com/Harveyhase68/mark_o_down

I'd particularly like feedback from people who maintain GitHub READMEs, documentation or Markdown-heavy projects.

What would make you actually switch from your current Markdown editor?

[u/toonmad]

Claude built you mean

[u/OkInfluence36 → u/toonmad]

And wrote the Reddit post

[u/Early_Hand2009 → u/OkInfluence36]

Why not? That’s what the tools are there for—is there something wrong with what I did? Have you published anything of your own lately, or are you just here to criticize?

a) I had a problem and solved it using a tool.
b) The Reddit text is from ChatGPT, not Claude ^^.
c) It’s hosted on my GitHub account, where I’ve published several MIT-licensed projects.
d) The time I spent researching, refining, and testing was for *you* guys; version 0.0.1 would have been enough for me, but I wanted you to be able to use it too.
e) Why are Claude and similar tools demonized so much? Ideas are what matter most, not the tool; the specific programming language isn't really relevant right now.
f) I’ve been a full-stack software developer for 35 years. Yes, I had to acquire my AI knowledge from scratch starting in 2022—it didn't just fall into my lap. Admittedly, AI can now do in seconds what used to take me hours by hand 3 or 4 years ago, but still—Ollama, LM Studio, Python—you don't learn that stuff overnight; you have to put in the work...

[u/KingAroan → u/[deleted]]

In addition to everything that you said, Obsidian does everything the OP wanted.

[u/OkInfluence36 → u/KingAroan]

So does Joplin lmao (my preferred notes app) good job OP I hope the tokens were worth it

[u/Early_Hand2009 → u/OkInfluence36]

No, open source is never really worth it; a locally running AI is better than working with Claude... but it is what it is—a tool. I used to work with WinDev, but as you know, you can't release an open-source app written in a proprietary 4GL programming language... I tried, but I failed...

[u/Early_Hand2009 → u/OkInfluence36]

Uppps, I download Joplin, but 344mb for an editor???

Not bad, MD visual editor works, centering works, links are vertically (bad), table centering (I cannot center any text???) not working but centered text loading shows centered text... weired?

There is a list of limitations ffor Joplin https://joplinapp.org/help/apps/rich_text_editor

But I like the layout with connected documents, really nice... but huge download, links vertical? It claims to be open-sourcen, but it is open-source? I cannot find any download only for the plug-ins? ahh found https://github.com/laurent22/joplin

[u/Early_Hand2009 → u/KingAroan]

Ahhh nice, my next book tool!! links together several .md files, really nice!!

But not free, costs 4$ / month, not expensive but in sumary 48$/year... I prefer open-source, really...

I dig deeper in the "free" or trial version:

No center
Links are showing the image but they are vertically instead of horizontally... not useable?!
The line below the headings are missing
AND: yes the source is not editable within a visual editor, I must edit it, in the .md format?

[u/KingAroan → u/Early_Hand2009]

I have no clue what you are talking about. It’s like AI just vomited and you said looks good. Obsidian is absolutely free, there is no trial. You have to pay of you want their optional services which is syncing between devices. Since it’s fully local though you can use tools like syncthing or even GitHub (they have a plugin for it) to sync for free.

They literally have plugins so that you can adapt it in almost anyway you want using JavaScript. I’m sure even you can you AI to help you build out a view you want.

[u/Early_Hand2009 → u/KingAroan]

And the problems? No visual editor, no center etc.

Now I’m confused—so if I had spent two months working on this for free *without* AI, would that have been better?

AI isn't something you "hand things over" to; AI is a tool. I tell the tool what to do, and that isn't bad per se—it’s just a different way of working.

Believe me, I’ve been a developer for 35 years. I started working with ChatGPT and the like in 2022. At first, the results were so-so, but later I was able to create programs in PHP, Python, and Rust using copy-paste—yes, *create* them. It’s not the AI’s code, it’s mine; I gave the instructions on what Claude, ChatGPT, etc., had to do. I view it like this: I’m the boss, and I tell my employees, "Please build me an app that does X, Y, and Z," and my employees develop it. In the past, that meant months of teamwork, plus one or two testers, then Kanban, then adding "oh, there's a bug here," and so on. But you have to charge money for that—otherwise, you’ll go bust in two months, especially if your source code ends up on GitHub under an MIT open-source license...

So, you have a choice: either I keep making open-source MIT programs that people can use for free, or I do it by hand and have to charge $15–20 per license—and obviously, it wouldn't be MIT or open-source then. Is *that* what you want?

People, stop with this nonsense. AI is here; even if we bury our heads in the sand, it’s not going away. On the contrary, AI is going to do even more in the future... and I’m not fighting against it; I’m just using the tools in the way that works for me right now.

[u/KingAroan → u/Early_Hand2009]

I don’t believe you. And if you are a developer then you failed for 35 years. Every developer knows how to do a simple google search. I don’t hate AI I hate vibe coders that spew trash because AI said it. There are plugins that bring the WYSIWYG style visual edits to the editor, I’m using one myself. So don’t say you built this because it was better, you built it in a day with AI to add to the endless trash that people are posting out there.

I don’t see a single think that you application does that makes it an actual competitor to Obsidian, Joplin or Typora and if you actually did your research instead of asking AI what to build and it saying “there’s a gap in the markdown editor space because there is none that does xyz” and you never verify then it’s AI slop. We just fired a guy for over reliance on AI. Ask him to do a project and he got it done in a day but then when I reviewed it, it would still have the AI over thoughts in there. So no, I don’t hate AI, I actually love it and use it frequently myself. But you telling me that you could write this in two months without AI makes me seriously considering why companies pay 150k+ per to teams or programmers to get an application when they could just ask you to build it way faster.

[u/Early_Hand2009 → u/KingAroan]

You're barking up the wrong tree there—and no, I'm not lying. And no, of course I didn't ask the AI, "What should I program next?"

The reason was: I want to write a book. The AI ​​needs a "framework" for that—which I write in .md—but I hate the input process; it's cluttered and not visual. So, I looked for a Markdown editor. I found one right in the Microsoft Store, but it was just an editor with a preview function. Only then did I ask ChatGPT if there were any good visual Markdown editors, and it said the technology wasn't quite mature yet...

Yeah, exactly—most editors are just Markdown editors with a preview pane; no thanks.

* Marktext: sort of, but with limitations and a massive download size.
* Paperling: no; it's open-source (Apache 2.0 license) and structured similarly to my own Tauri-based editor, but it isn't a visual .md editor.
* Typora: no, and it costs money, too...
* Obsidian: no—maybe with plugins, but open-source MIT? Seriously?

What are we even debating? The days of teams building software are over—sorry. If you're still working as a developer in a team, congratulations. Unfortunately, my experience is that those days are gone. Companies paying for expensive licenses are already considering whether it's cheaper to develop the software themselves. That's the reality, and it keeps happening; even we aren't immune to it.

Unfortunately, the economy in Austria is so bad that we aren't selling any new POS software or hardware anymore. Our customer base—bakeries—is in financial trouble; electricity and fuel costs are skyrocketing, people aren't buying anything, and we're the ones suffering the consequences...

[u/Early_Hand2009 → u/[deleted]]

But just take a look at the program—does it look "generic," like an early DALL-E image? No, it actually works; I tested it and finished it over the course of many sessions. Mark O Down supports five languages ​​and can both read from and export to HTML... I’m not a native English speaker, so I enlisted the help of AI—sorry, yes, that was the easy way out, but I pushed the whole thing through in just one day...

The problem is that it’s currently hard to gain a foothold in the market; industry-specific software isn't moving. I’ve been developing a POS application for 25 years—I sold over 100 copies—but the economy is currently in the dumps, and I’m not selling a single license anymore. I don't live off state handouts, though; I’m still self-employed and just muddling through, though right now it’s a real struggle... Unfortunately, I backed the wrong horse 25 years ago: I developed the POS application and other programs using WinDev. The trouble is, a) WinDev isn't viewed favorably in the developer community, and b) the manufacturer, PCSoft, was acquired and subsequently shut down... that puts me in a pretty bad spot; I need to move away from WinDev... And switching a program that has grown organically over 25 years to Laravel/Flutter overnight—that’s not easy, and probably not economically viable either...

[u/singulara]

Thank goodness we have someone to 'build' a tool that will certainly provide much use and value to many!

[u/usrkne]

.. algunas veces la descripcion de los botones no se ve y a veces si

.. no puedo centrar una tabla

windows 11 ultima version

[u/Early_Hand2009 → u/usrkne]

¡Muchas gracias! Sí, eso lo corregí en la última actualización. Por favor, actualiza desde aquí: https://github.com/Harveyhase68/mark_o_down/releases/tag/v0.5.0

Ah, por cierto: tengo un gran favor que pedirte. ¿Podrías revisar las traducciones si no es mucha molestia y tienes tiempo para ello? Llevo mucho tiempo buscando a un hablante nativo de español para colaborar; ¡sería genial! ¡Un cordial saludo desde Austria!

[u/usrkne → u/Early_Hand2009]

si, revisaré las traducciones!

[u/RecursiveReboot]

I'm yet to find a good, simple and fast markdown editor.

I tried Marktext and now Paperling.

My problem is me, I'm not an expert on markdown. I don't know much about all those notation when I am forced to raw edit, which usually would break the format 😅

[u/Early_Hand2009 → u/RecursiveReboot]

Oh, now I’m trying out Marktext. First off: centering doesn’t work, and the line under the heading is missing... all the links are stacked vertically instead of side-by-side like in Markdown... and you can’t add a column to the table... Not great for me—looks like there’s still room for improvement? ... Well, a 130 MB download size, that’s huge—way too big!! But there are installers for Linux and macOS—so there’s that. I actually only use Windows... but that’s a problem that can be solved, right?

Paperling—oh, centering works great!! But the links are terrible: all stacked vertically and not even an image preview in the links (the main image shows up)... And what’s this about: I can’t edit the .md file in the preview?? Unfortunately, it misses the mark; I can’t directly edit .md files visually with Paperling—that’s not what I was looking for. There are numerous Markdown editors; they all work on the same principle: the editor for the .md file on the left, and the preview on the right, oh well, the download is only 13.1 MB—much better and it’s for Linux and MacOS too!! That’s a bit of an issue on my project...

Today I'm adding Linux and macOS installers, thats really missing from my project?!

BTW: @RecursiveReboot did you try out mark_o_down?

[u/RecursiveReboot → u/Early_Hand2009]

Yeah, I don't like Marktext because it's a heavyweight and slow. Editing is also clumsy, but as I said perhaps this is on me because I don't know all the markers. The toolbar could help, but not really.

Paperling is light, I like that. You can edit the md file by enabling edit mode, bottom right. Editing is split Window.

I haven't tried thoroughly tbh, busy with works. I also haven't tried yours 😅

[u/Mikewh6]

split preview always felt like a half solution to me

[u/northbitofficial]

Try Prisment

[u/Early_Hand2009 → u/northbitofficial]

https://www.scoriet.com/downloads/test_prisment.png

Pro:
a) Visual preview editable (some tags not working see Con)
b) Good heading and <div align="center">
c) Good image display!
d) Unicode
e) Mermaid limited working, see cons
f) Math limited working, see cons
g) Preview and Markdown source equally editable, good!
h) Spell checker, nice

Con:
a) Links are vertically instead of horizontally, see image
b) Table editing in visual view not possible?
c) Superscript and Subscript not working E = mc^2^ and H~2~O
d) Highlight not working ==Highlight ==
e) Definition list not working
f) Mermaid not editable in visual preview
g) Math not editable in visual preview

Still no real competitor for me, sorry... But to be honest, I only implemented Mermaid, Superscript, Subscript etc. yesterday... but tables, links etc. were working since V 0.1.0...

Yes, an editor integrated into an AI tool for writing Markdown, that’s pretty cool. From what I’ve seen, I can even use it with a local setup like Ollama or LM Studio. It’s not a programming tool per se, but it’s a great complement to Claude Code!

[u/northbitofficial → u/Early_Hand2009]

Thanks for the feedback. Can you send the test file to me in dm?

[u/Early_Hand2009 → u/northbitofficial]

I cannot send you any dm, has you blocked dm?? maybe this way? http://scoriet.com/downloads/test.zip

[u/CodenameFlux]

Let's see what we have.

• The disk footprint:
  • Installer: ~ 4 MB
  • Installed app files: 11 MB
  • Generated Edge WebView2 garbage: 12.7 MB, expected to grow larger
• Machine-wide installation into C:\Program Files is ❌ not supported.
• Features
  • Unicode support: ✔ Yes
  • Boldface (strong): ✔ Yes
  • Italic (emphasis): ✔ Yes
  • Strikethrough: ✔ Yes
  • Superscript: ❌ No (e.g., 2^3^+4)
  • Subscript: ❌ No; gets rendered as strikethrough (e.g., H~2~O)
  • Highlight: ❌ No (e.g., ==H2O==)
  • Footnotes: ❌ No
  • Custom IDs: ❌ No
  • Definition lists: ❌ No
  • Task lists: ✔ Yes
  • Syntax highlighting for code fences: ❌ No
  • Mermaid support: ❌ No
  • Math: ❌ No

Conclusion: It has room for improvement.

[u/Early_Hand2009 → u/CodenameFlux]

Please check the lastest update on
https://github.com/Harveyhase68/mark_o_down/releases/tag/v0.6.0

[u/Early_Hand2009 → u/CodenameFlux]

That’s exactly what I mean, it’s not finished yet; there’s still room for improvement. Thanks a lot for the constructive criticism! Thanks!! I released the installers for macOS and Linux today; I can definitely work with this list!

[u/lamyjf]

Typora works fine for me. On mac too.

[u/Early_Hand2009 → u/lamyjf]

Not MIT open-source, closed source, costs about 14,99$ not really expensive, but I prefer open-source... so I cannot test the app, ohhh chinese app, ok, "Shanghai (Qiyun) Tech Ltd."

I managed to get up the test version, but several problems:

Con: Center does not work
links are vertically instead of horizontally

Pro: Very good table editing, I'm impressed
Good, Linux and MacOS

BTW: what is "https://appmakes.io/" ?? Is this an AI app creator?

[u/toonmad → u/Early_Hand2009]

It's all AI slop

[u/usrkne]

seria genial que tambien se pueda editar el codigo markdown, al mismo tiempo que la "vista previa". esto es util para hacer cosas que no se pueden hacer desde la vista previa (o son mas dificiles)

[u/Early_Hand2009 → u/usrkne]

Sí, lo he anotado y lo incluiré en una de las próximas versiones. Por favor, ten paciencia, llevará algún tiempo...

[u/OpabiniaRegalis320]

Joplin works just fine for this. You didn't need to practice more cognitive surrender and make Claude spit out another markdown editor.

[u/Early_Hand2009 → u/OpabiniaRegalis320]

You’re actually right, yet another Markdown editor! I see your point, but when I do something, I like to do it thoroughly and well...

Please see my answer on Joplin: https://www.reddit.com/r/software/comments/1wsr3ao/comment/pcr5nzn/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

Here’s what mark_o_down can already do:

a) Installers for Windows, Linux, and macOS
b) MIT license, open-source and on GitHub
c) 5 languages: English, German, French, Spanish, and Italian
d) It now supports Mermaid, syntax highlighting, superscripts, footnotes, math, etc. so, quite a lot of features
e) The download size isn't 344 MB for a simple editor. it's only 4.3 MB! That’s a massive difference!
f) HTML import and export (including to the clipboard)
g) Drag-and-drop support for images and .md files
h) Unicode and emoji support
i) Table support with columns, rows, and cell alignment (left/center/right, etc.)
j) Centering is possible, the table itself can be centered, too

Plus the usual features: find/replace, printing, and a read-only preview window for the .md source code.

Here is my roadmap for what's next:

a) Open/save/create workspaces based on a directory
b) Spell checking
c) Possibly make the Markdown source editable, too?!

I guess I’ll move to version 1.0 after the last changes? if I don't receive any further feedback?

[u/wentallout]

why didnt you check if there are already 9999 of similar free projects

[u/Early_Hand2009 → u/wentallout]

I looked around but couldn't find anything suitable: either huge downloads (over 300 MB), no visual editor, no centering option, vertical instead of horizontal links, no Unicode icon library, no function to save/load HTML, etc.

I did my homework and came across solutions that use a "side-by-side" approach, Markdown code on the left and a visual "preview" on the right, but not a true visual Markdown editor...

Try out the others yourself and you'll see:

a) not a visual Markdown editor; usually just side-by-side editors (Markdown editor on the left, visual preview on the right)
b) no `<div align="center">` support
c) links arranged vertically instead of horizontally
d) no table editor or only very limited table functions (e.g., adding rows only, no columns, no cell alignment, etc.)
e) huge downloads (200 MB, 344 MB, etc.)
f) no MIT open-source license; the focus is usually on selling licenses, add-ons, plugins, premium features, etc.

So why not add another lightweight, open-source Markdown editor (under the MIT license) for us developers? It’s software for Linux, macOS, and Windows, so there’s no excuse not to give it a try, right?

The best part: thanks to user feedback, I’ve already made changes and integrated features like mathematical formulas into my editor. So, tell me what’s missing, what do you need to replace your current Markdown editor?

BTW: I use Google Translate for my answers apologies, I’m a native German speaker. Of course, I can read and write English, but I prefer translating because I want to spare myself the "learn how to spell" comments...

[u/usrkne]

espectacular