What is a Markdown Preview?
Markdown is a lightweight markup syntax — using symbols like # for headings and ** for bold — that gets converted into formatted HTML, widely used for README files, documentation, blog posts, and comments on platforms like GitHub and Reddit. Because Markdown source looks like plain text with symbols sprinkled in, it's easy to make a small syntax mistake (a missing space after a #, an unclosed ** pair) that silently breaks the formatting. A live preview shows you exactly how the rendered output will look as you type, catching those mistakes immediately instead of after you've already committed or published.
When to use it
This is the natural tool for writing a GitHub README before pushing it (so you're not guessing how it'll render on GitHub's actual page), drafting a blog post for a Markdown-based static site generator or CMS, or writing technical documentation that needs headings, code blocks, and lists formatted correctly. It's also useful for quickly checking how a piece of Markdown someone sent you will actually display, without needing to paste it into the platform it's destined for first.
How it works
This tool parses your Markdown input using a standard Markdown-to-HTML conversion library and renders the resulting HTML live in the preview pane as you type, re-parsing on every keystroke so the preview always reflects your current text. It supports the core CommonMark-style syntax — headings, emphasis, lists, links, images, blockquotes, and fenced code blocks — which covers what nearly all Markdown-consuming platforms expect.
Frequently asked questions
Will this preview match exactly how GitHub renders my README?
Very closely for standard Markdown, but not pixel-perfect — GitHub uses its own Markdown flavor (GitHub Flavored Markdown) with some extensions like task lists and specific table styling that can render slightly differently. For anything platform-specific, always do a final check on the actual platform before publishing.
Why isn't my bold or italic text rendering correctly?
The most common cause is unmatched asterisks or underscores — bold needs a matching pair of ** on both sides (**text**), and italic needs a matching pair of single * or _ characters. A stray unmatched symbol will often cause everything after it to render incorrectly.
Does this tool support Markdown tables?
Yes, standard pipe-delimited tables with a header separator row render correctly. If you want a guided way to build a table without hand-typing the pipe syntax, this site also has a dedicated Markdown Table Generator tool.