Markdown is a simple way to format text using ordinary characters: # creates a heading, **bold** makes text bold, and a hyphen at the start of a line creates a list item. John Gruber published it in 2004. Markdown files usually have the .md extension, or less commonly .markdown. You'll find them as README files on GitHub, in documentation and notes; Discord also uses Markdown for chat messages. The advantage is that the plain text remains readable without formatting.

Click “Open file” in the editor and select a .md, .markdown, .mdown or .txt file up to 2 MB, or paste its contents into the text field. In “README / GitHub” mode, the preview immediately displays it with formatting, including tables, task lists and highlighted code. With more than 100,000 characters, it only appears after you click “Show preview anyway”. You don't need to install anything, and the file is not uploaded: your browser reads it locally. You can then edit the text and download it as a .md file again.

In “README / GitHub” mode, click “Save as PDF”. The editor opens your browser's print dialog with the formatted document. Select “Save as PDF” as the destination and confirm. The PDF is created on your device; nothing is uploaded. The editor takes the document title from the first heading. Set margins and headers in the print dialog.

A table has a header row with vertical bars, a separator row with three hyphens per column and data rows. For example: | Name | RAM |, followed by | --- | ---: | and then | Pro | 8 |. A colon in the separator row sets the alignment. There's a faster way with Excel or Google Sheets: copy the cells, paste them into the text field, select the pasted text and click “Table”. The first row becomes the header, and columns containing only numbers are right-aligned. CSV rows separated by semicolons or commas also work, but the button cannot parse quoted CSV fields that contain the delimiter. Tables are part of GitHub Flavored Markdown and do not work in Discord.

In “README / GitHub” mode, “Copy HTML” copies the finished HTML code; for example, **bold** becomes <strong>bold</strong>. “Download .html” saves a complete page with basic styling. For security, the editor does not render HTML tags you write in the Markdown; it displays them as text. The editor cannot export Word or .docx files. For Word, download the .html file and open it there, or save the document as a PDF.

Switch to “Discord” at the top. Discord syntax then applies: **bold**, *italic*, __underlined__, ~~strikethrough~~, ||Spoiler|| and `Code`. # through ### at the start of a line create headings, -# makes a line small and gray, and > quotes a line. The preview shows the message as it would appear in chat, and the counter checks it against the 2,000-character limit, or 4,000 with Nitro. Discord does not support tables, images, horizontal rules or HTML, and the editor alerts you to this. Use “Copy message” to copy the text.

A blank line separates paragraphs. In a README, a single line break in the text is treated like a space, so the text continues. For a hard line break, add two spaces or a backslash at the end of the line. Discord is simpler: every line break you insert with Shift+Enter is preserved.

Nothing is uploaded: preview, HTML export, PDF and opening files all run locally in your browser. To keep your work after a reload, the editor saves a draft in your browser's local storage. “Clear” empties the text field for the current mode and also clears its saved draft. The preview displays HTML in your text rather than executing it, and removes links with unsafe schemes such as javascript:.