The whole idea

One document. No preview pane.

Marklet styles your Markdown in place. Markers vanish where your caret is not and come back the moment you go in, so the file you edit is the file you read. Hover any line below to bring its syntax back, or reveal the whole document at once.

release-notes.md

# Release notes

A single pane where the source is the preview. **Bold**, _italic_, ==highlight==, ~~struck~~, `inline code`, and [links](https://getmarklet.com).

## Shipping this week

Live formatting for every inline element

Tables you can edit cell by cell

Mermaid diagrams

- Bullets draw as real bullets

- Nested items shift one level in

> [!tip] Caret rules Caret rules Put the caret inside anything and the raw Markdown comes back. Move away and it renders again.

Element	Renders	Editable
Table	A grid that stays a grid	Yes
Math	SwiftMath image	Yes

```swift

// about 190 languages
let editor = NSTextView(frame: .zero)
editor.layoutManager = EditorLayoutManager()

```

Inline math like $e^{i\pi} + 1 = 0$e^iπ + 1 = 0 sits on the baseline, and $5 stays five dollars.

$$ a^2 + b^2 = c^2 $$ a² + b² = c²

![Harbor](harbor.jpg)

---

Everything above is one plain text file on your disk. Open it in any other editor and nothing is missing.

Features

What Marklet does

Live formatting, everywhere

Bold, italic, bold plus italic, highlights, strikethrough, inline code, links, heading markers, escape backslashes, and whole image expressions all collapse when the caret leaves them. Nothing is retyped and nothing is converted: the markers are simply hidden in place.

Bullets render as drawn bullets while the raw marker waits underneath
Bold, italic, and both together each get their own color
Inline code stays literal, so `**bold**` keeps its asterisks
Prefer the old look? One switch in Settings dims markers instead of hiding them

Caret outside

**Milestones** for *this* quarter

Ship the ==editor core==, then ~~rewrite it~~

Read the [notes](notes.md) first

Lists that keep up with you

Return continues a bullet, an ordered item, or a task. Return on an empty item exits the list. Tab and Shift Tab indent and outdent, wrapped lines hang under the content instead of under the marker, and ⌘L turns any line into a checkbox.

Real checkboxes you click, with normal undo
Bullet, ordered, and task lists all continue correctly
Nested levels shift one em per level
Headings inside list items work, and show up in the outline

Click a box- [x] Draft the changelog

Draft the changelog

Cut the release build

Upload to App Store Connect

Tables you can actually edit

Pipe tables draw as a grid and stay a grid. Click a cell to edit it right there, Tab to the next one, and Tab from the last cell to add a row. Right click for row and column operations and column alignment. Cells render their own inline Markdown, including code, links, and images.

The grid stretches to the width of the source block
Cell text wraps, and rows size to their content
Format Table tidies the pipes in padded or compact style
Underneath it is still an ordinary pipe table in your file

Editing a cellright click the table

Build	Size	Engine
Marklet	41 MB	AppKit
Electron app	285 MB	Chromium

Code blocks with colors and a copy button

Fenced blocks get language aware highlighting for roughly 190 languages, themed separately for light and dark mode. The background runs the full width of the line, and the copy button shows the language name and copies the contents without the fences.

Unknown languages fall back to plain code styling
The code font is configurable and stays monospace by default
Inline code gets its own adaptive background
Blocks get extra breathing room above and below

Fenced blockcopies without the fences

func highlight(_ range: NSRange) {
  // only the edited paragraph
  applyIncremental(range)
}

Math that knows what money is

Block formulas between $$ render centered through SwiftMath. Inline formulas between single dollars render on the baseline and collapse to exactly the width they need. Prices like $5 and $1,000.50 are left alone by a currency heuristic, and an escaped dollar sign never opens math at all.

Sharp on any display, redrawn at your font size
Caret reveals monospaced, editable LaTeX
Math never fires inside code blocks, code spans, or tables

Rendered

Coffee costs $4.50, which is not math.

$$ x = \frac{-b \pm \sqrt{b^2-4ac}}{2a} $$ x = −b ± √(b² − 4ac)2a

Quotes, callouts, and the whole type set

Blockquotes draw a vertical accent bar per nesting level. Callouts written as > [!note] pick up the accent color, a tinted background, and the conventional SF Symbol for their type, covering the full GitHub and Obsidian type set plus aliases. Add your own title and it becomes an accent colored headline.

Note, tip, important, warning, caution, and friends
Nested quotes such as > > text stack their bars
Unknown types stay ordinary quotes instead of breaking

Calloutsaccent, icon, custom title

Note Marklet keeps the raw > [!note] line under the render.

Read the fine print Custom titles render as the headline, Obsidian style.

Images sized the way you drew them

Local and remote images preview under their source line, centered, at their real dimensions, so nothing leaves a band of empty space. Drag the grip on the right edge to resize, and Marklet writes the width straight back into the alt text as ![alt|420](photo.jpg).

Document relative paths, absolute paths, file URLs, and http images
Filenames with spaces work
Linked images open the outer link when you click the preview
Broken paths show an inline placeholder that says what it tried

Drag the grip![Harbor|220](harbor.jpg)

![Harbor|220](harbor.jpg)

Undo gives back a thought, not an afternoon

This one came out of years in Google Docs, where undo hands back a revision at a time and you can walk backwards through your own thinking. Almost nothing on the desktop does that. A plain text view coalesces every keystroke into one step until something interrupts it, so a single Command Z swallows everything since your last click, and the recovery is to retype it. Marklet ends the step where you would end a thought, which makes Command Z something you can lean on instead of something you brace for.

A pause of about half a second closes the current step
Return closes it too, so a finished line comes back whole
A completed save closes it, so undo never steps across what is already on disk
The editor keeps its own undo stack, so nothing else can crowd out your typing

notes.md

Draft the release note. Mention the undo work first. Then the saving changes, then the fixes.

Three steps. Press ⌘Z to take back one.

A Mac app, not a web page in a costume

Real window tabs, the real find bar, the real font panel, the real title bar rename popover. Marklet is an AppKit text view with a custom layout manager, so every macOS text behavior you already have muscle memory for is simply there.

Saving that quietly does its job and stays out of your way
Window tabs with ⌘T, ⌘1 through ⌘9, and the standard tab menu
Outline sidebar for headings with click to jump
Command palette on ⌘⇧P, shortcut reference on ⌘/
Reading mode on ⌘E, printing on ⌘P, drag and drop for images and files

⌘⇧Pcommand palette

tab

New Tab⌘T
Show Next Tab⌃⇥
Move Tab to New Window
Insert Table

Make it look like yours

Pick any font through the native font panel, keep code monospace or let it follow the editor font, and set bold, italic, highlight, and code colors with separate wells for light and dark. Structural spacing has Compact, Normal, and Relaxed presets plus a fine tune slider, and body line spacing has its own.

Every keyboard shortcut is reassignable, with conflict detection
Light, Dark, or follow the system, plus a choice of app icon
Word and character counter in the toolbar, or hidden
A scoped reset in each settings tab, so nothing is a one way door

SettingsAppearance

Bold

Italic

Highlight

SpacingCompactNormalRelaxed

Line spacing

Small, and quick about it

The whole app is about 41 MB, native builds for Intel and Apple silicon included, because there is no browser inside it. Typing restyles only the paragraph you touched instead of the whole document, and every regular expression and parse result is cached for the pass.

Noticeably less memory in use than comparable editors that render through a browser engine
Incremental highlighting, with a full pass only when block structure changes
Progressive highlighting, so big documents stay responsive while the rest catches up
Moving the caret skips a fresh pass when the active element has not changed
Over 300 automated tests over the parser and highlighter

App bundle sizemeasured, not quoted

Marklet41 MB

Typora44 MB

MarkText285 MB

Obsidian441 MB

Curious how that stacks up against the editor you use now? See the full comparison.

The complete list

Everything in the box

Marklet is small, but it is not thin. Here is the whole feature set.

Editing

Undo that takes back a thought, not a paragraph. Redo and revert to match
Saving you never have to think about: it saves when you ask, warns before closing unsaved work, and never gets in your way
Optional Auto Save with Versions, writing as you type and keeping earlier drafts
Notices files changed outside Marklet, and lets you keep yours, take theirs, or combine them
Reopens the documents you had open when you last quit, if you want it to
Inline find bar with live match highlighting
Find and replace, find next and previous, use selection for find
Bold, italic, link, strikethrough, and checkbox shortcuts
Format menu for inline code, highlight, and horizontal rule
Every shortcut reassignable, with conflict detection
Command palette with search over every action
Keyboard shortcut reference window
Editor zoom in, out, and reset
Auto pairing for brackets, backticks, and quotes
Selected text wraps when you type a pair
Spell check and every smart substitution, each its own toggle
Reading mode that renders the document with editing off
Print, including print to PDF through macOS

Markdown

ATX and Setext headings with scaled spacing
Headings inside list items
Bullet, ordered, nested, and task lists
Clickable task checkboxes with undo
Pipe tables with a rendered grid and cell editing in place
Row and column operations, alignment, and table formatting
Inline Markdown inside table cells
Fenced code blocks, about 190 languages, light and dark themes
Copy button that names the language
Inline and block LaTeX through SwiftMath
Blockquotes with one accent bar per nesting level
Callouts with icons, accents, and custom titles
Thematic breaks drawn as a rule
Bold, italic, bold plus italic, highlight, strikethrough
Inline code that stays literal
Escaped punctuation treated as text
Links, autolinked URLs, and autolinked email addresses
Wikilinks, with a choice of what happens when the target is missing
Local, remote, and linked images with resize handles

The Mac part

Document based open and save for .md, .markdown, and .txt
Native window tabs, tab bar, and the standard tab menu
Switch tabs with ⌘1 through ⌘9
Title bar rename, move, and disclosure popover
Rename between .txt, .md, and .markdown
Outline sidebar for headings with click to jump
Word and character counter in the toolbar
Drag images in to insert relative paths
Drag Markdown files in to open them
Folded Markdown document icon in Finder
Light, Dark, or system appearance
A choice of app icon

Under the hood

AppKit NSTextView with a custom NSLayoutManager
SwiftUI only for the app shell
No web view anywhere in the editor
Incremental highlighting per paragraph
Progressive highlighting for long documents
Cached regular expressions and per pass parse results
Width aware table measurement
Over 300 automated tests
About 41 MB installed, universal for Intel and Apple silicon
Sandboxed, and its one network permission exists only to fetch images your document points at
No accounts, no telemetry, no library database

Not yet

Mermaid diagrams, footnotes, and reference style links are not here yet, and neither is a dedicated HTML export. Raw HTML in a document is not handled at all, so it sits there as plain text. HTML support and full CommonMark and GitHub Flavored Markdown coverage are the next things being worked on, and footnotes are the last GitHub Flavored piece missing. If one of these is the reason you would not switch, say so on the support page and it moves up the list.

# Markdown,
live on the page.

No preview pane.

One document. No preview pane.

What Marklet does

Live formatting, everywhere

Lists that keep up with you

Tables you can actually edit

Code blocks with colors and a copy button

Math that knows what money is

Quotes, callouts, and the whole type set

Images sized the way you drew them

Undo gives back a thought, not an afternoon

A Mac app, not a web page in a costume

Make it look like yours

Small, and quick about it

Everything in the box

Editing

Markdown

The Mac part

Under the hood

Not yet

Two ways to get it.

What the direct build has that the App Store copy does not