mdreader

A fast, beautiful markdown reader for Windows — that happens to edit.

Double-click a .md file, see a well-typeset document in under a second, press Ctrl+E to edit the raw markdown, Ctrl+S, back to reading. Nothing else. No vault, no notebook, no sync, no account.

Features

• Reader first. A calm, readable document view with real typographic hierarchy, light and dark themes that follow Windows, and WCAG AA contrast. Content follows the window width by default; a classic centered ~72-character reading column is one setting away.
• CommonMark + GFM via Markdig: tables (pipe and grid), task lists, footnotes, definition lists, strikethrough, sub/superscript, abbreviations, citations, custom containers, YAML front matter (rendered as a collapsed metadata card), emoji shortcodes.
• Code, diagrams, math. highlight.js syntax coloring with a hover copy button, Mermaid diagrams (graceful inline errors, never a blank space), and KaTeX math — all bundled, all offline.
• Source mode. Ctrl+E toggles to a Monaco editor with markdown highlighting; scroll position is preserved in both directions. Ctrl+Shift+E for split view with synchronized scrolling.
• Faithful saves. Encoding, BOM, and line endings are detected on open and round-tripped byte-for-byte — your Git diffs stay clean.
• Live reload. Files changed on disk reload in place (debounced); if you have unsaved edits you choose Reload or Keep mine.
• Navigation. Collapsible table of contents with keyboard support, Ctrl+G go-to-line-or-heading, back/forward through jumps (Alt+Left/Alt+Right), and every file reopens at the spot you left it.
• Safe editing. Atomic saves, visible dirty markers, one clear review of all unsaved documents on close, and crash recovery that offers your unsaved edits back on the next launch — without ever touching the file on disk.
• Reading info. Unobtrusive word count, estimated reading time, and progress in the status bar.
• Single instance with tabs, drag & drop, recent files, find in both modes, zoom that persists.
• Windows integration. Explorer offers Open in mdreader and Export to PDF… for registered Markdown files. PDF export always asks where to save and never overwrites silently.
• Everyday convenience. Optional session restoration, reopen-closed-tab, pinned recent files, a one-time local welcome document, dropped-image insertion, and warnings for missing local links and images.
• Export: self-contained HTML (diagrams and math pre-rendered, images embedded), PDF, print, and copy-as-rich-text that pastes cleanly into Word and Outlook. Document, Technical report, and Compact presets are available.
• Scriptable: mdreader file.md --export-html out.html and --export-pdf out.pdf work headlessly for CI.

No telemetry. Ever.

mdreader makes no network requests of any kind, with two explicit, visible exceptions you control: loading remote images (off by default — they are a tracking vector) and an opt-in update check against the GitHub releases API (also off by default). There are no analytics, no crash reporting phone-home, no usage beacons. This is enforced in code, not just promised here: the reader runs under a Content Security Policy with connect-src 'none'.

Install

winget (recommended):

winget install recherchesolutions.mdreader

Installer: download mdreader-setup-<version>.exe from Releases. Per-user, no admin required. Silent install for Intune/SCCM: mdreader-setup.exe /VERYSILENT /NORESTART.

Portable: download mdreader-<version>-portable-win-x64.zip, extract, run mdreader.exe. No installer, no registry writes until first launch (the app registers itself per-user as an available handler — never the default without your say-so).

Build from source:

git clone https://github.com/recherchesolutions/mdreader
cd mdreader
dotnet build -c Release
dotnet run --project src/MdReader.App -c Release -- path\to\file.md

Requires the .NET 10 SDK and the WebView2 Evergreen Runtime (preinstalled on Windows 11 and any machine with Edge).

Keyboard

Key	Action
Ctrl+E	Toggle Reader ⇄ Source
Ctrl+Shift+E	Toggle split view
Ctrl+Shift+O	Table of contents
Ctrl+F	Find
Ctrl+G	Go to line or heading
Alt+Left / Alt+Right	Back / forward (jump history)
Ctrl+S	Save
Ctrl+P	Print
Ctrl + / - / 0	Zoom
Ctrl+O / Ctrl+W / Ctrl+Tab	Open / close tab / next tab
Ctrl+Shift+T	Reopen the most recently closed tab

Developer CLI

mdreader-convert supports ordinary files, standard streams, watch mode, deterministic HTML, and local-only validation. Diagnostics are written to stderr so stdout remains safe for pipelines.

Get-Content README.md -Raw | mdreader-convert --stdin --stdout --deterministic > README.html
mdreader-convert README.md README.html --watch
mdreader-convert --check-links docs --diagnostics json

For stdin content, use --base-dir <folder> to resolve relative assets. A versioned .mdreader.json may set theme and deterministic; its schema is in docs/mdreader-config.schema.json. Project configuration cannot silently enable raw HTML or remote content.

Exit codes are 0 for success, 1 for conversion/internal failure, 2 for invalid input, and 4 when validation finds local problems.

Source mode

Why mdreader?

A factual comparison with the usual ways people read markdown on Windows:

	mdreader	Browser extension	VS Code preview	Note-taking apps
Double-click a .md file, get a document	✅	manual setup, per-browser	opens an editor first	imports into a library
Works fully offline	✅	varies	✅	varies
Edit the raw markdown	✅ one keystroke	❌	✅	often WYSIWYG-only
Diagrams + math built in	✅	varies	via extensions	varies
Byte-faithful saves (Git-friendly)	✅	n/a	✅	often reformats
No account, no sync, no telemetry	✅	varies	telemetry opt-out	often account-based

If you live in a vault of linked notes, a note app serves you better — that is deliberately not what mdreader is.

Custom themes

Drop a CSS file into %APPDATA%\mdreader\themes\ and select it in Settings. The entire palette is CSS custom properties — a theme is usually a dozen lines overriding the variables at the top of reader.css.

What this is not

Not a note app. No wiki links, backlinks, graph view, tags, or vaults. No cloud sync, no accounts, no collaboration. No WYSIWYG editing — Source mode shows raw markdown, by design. No plugin system (custom CSS themes are the extensibility story). No telemetry. No AI features.

Security

Every document is treated as untrusted input. Rendered HTML is sanitized through an allowlist, remote content is blocked by default, scripts cannot run in documents, and the app never requests elevation. Details and the disclosure process are in SECURITY.md.

License

MIT. Bundled third-party components are listed in THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.md.