Tashreef's fascination with consumer technology began in the school library when he stumbled upon a tech magazine, CHIP, which ultimately inspired him to pursue a degree in Computer Science. Since 2012, Tashreef has professionally authored over a thousand how-to articles, contributing to Windows Report and How-To Geek. He currently focuses on Microsoft Windows content at MakeUseOf, which he has been using since 2007.
With hands-on experience building websites and technology blogs, he brings practical developer insights to his technical writing. You can view his complete work portfolio at itashreef.com.
You might also stumble upon his short how-to video explainers, simplifying complex topics. Beyond writing, Tashreef enjoys creating short explainer videos, gaming, and exploring animated shows.
The need to learn Markdown is greater now than ever because of AI, and you'll often get a better response out of your LLM with a Markdown file than with plain text instructions. I only got into Markdown because that's what Obsidian supported. That said, if you just need a Markdown editor and not a whole knowledge management system, Obsidian can be overkill. It also doesn't do well with files created elsewhere, so a dedicated Markdown editor is still the way to go.
So I tried a few of the popular options. I started with iA Writer, a well-made but premium Markdown editor, then moved to Typora, which also offers a clean writing environment, but a paid one again. Then I gave SilverBullet a shot too, but it was a bit too complex for what I needed and leans Linux-only. After a few more detours, I landed on MarkText, and it's the Markdown editor that finally makes writing enjoyable again.
MarkText doesn't pick a side between people who know Markdown and people who don't. If you already write in Markdown, the usual syntax just works. Type # for a heading, **bold** for bold text, or [text](url) for a link, and MarkText renders it inline as you type, instead of splitting your screen into source and preview panes.
If you're new to Markdown, you can use MarkText like a regular text editor. Just type your text, highlight it, and a small floating toolbar appears with options for bold, italic, underline, strikethrough, inline code, and links. It feels closer to writing in a stripped-down Word document than learning a new syntax. The Paragraph and Format menus also let you insert headings, lists, tables, math blocks, and even HTML blocks without remembering any Markdown notation.
What this means in practice is that you can hand MarkText to a colleague who has never seen a .md file, and they can still produce clean Markdown without realizing it. And when you're ready to switch to keyboard-driven writing, every formatting option has a shortcut, so the editor grows with you instead of forcing a workflow on day one.
For an app that focuses on one job, MarkText punches well above its weight. The inline rendering is the standout feature, but the small touches are what make it stick. Lists auto-continue when you press Enter, so you're not manually typing dashes or numbers. A live word counter sits in the corner of the window, which is essential if you write to length the way I do.
The Paragraph menu also exposes advanced blocks like math, code fences, quote blocks, and front matter, so I can drop a YAML block at the top of a draft for CMS metadata without remembering the exact syntax. There's a built-in sidebar file browser to switch between drafts, and tabs are supported through Ctrl + T, which I only learned about after using the app for a while. The discoverability isn't perfect, but the features are there.
For focused writing, MarkText offers typewriter mode and focus mode. Typewriter mode keeps the current line in the middle of the screen, and focus mode dims everything except the paragraph you're working on. Together, they recreate the distraction-free feel of writing apps that charge a subscription, and I tend to toggle them on for first drafts when I'm trying to think more than edit.
It also handles images sensibly. Drag an image into a document, and MarkText asks whether to keep it in place or move it into the file's directory, which is helpful when you want a draft to stay portable. Across the board, the feature set is deliberate. It doesn't have a sync service (it'd be nice to have one), there's no knowledge graph, and certainly no plugin marketplace, which is also why it feels fast.
MarkText is also high on customization, which is a welcome change among apps that often adopt a monotone and overly simplistic approach to their interface. Open Preferences, and you'll find a search bar at the top, which sounds trivial until you've used an app with a hundred buried options and no way to find them. I
Here you can choose autosave and its delay interval, scrollbar visibility, font and line height, bullet markers, ordered list style, front matter format, and how HTML is handled. There's even a GitLab compatibility mode for anyone working with GitLab-flavored Markdown. Themes are previewed live in the settings panel, with several dark options included, and you can have the app follow your system theme automatically.
The keybinding panel is a nice touch, too. Every shortcut in MarkText is editable, not just a handful of popular ones, and the list doubles as a cheat sheet. If a chord conflicts with my window manager, I can reassign it right away.
No software is perfect, and MarkText is no different, as it has some quirks that I've come across in my two months of using the app. First, the word counter is always visible, but it doesn't update when you highlight a selection, which is annoying if you're trying to hit a specific word count between headings. Autosave is also off by default, and as someone coming from Obsidian, I lost a few paragraphs the first time I started using it. It only took once for me to enable it, though.
The bigger thing to know is that MarkText hasn't received an update since March 2022. That sounds alarming, but the app still works exactly as it did then. I've been using it on Windows for months without it making me regret the decision, and there's nothing broken or missing from a writer's point of view. The lack of active development means new features aren't coming, and any issues that you may come across won't be fixed, but the existing ones don't seem to be going anywhere either.
There's also no built-in sync, which I don't mind because I keep my Markdown files in a folder that I sync across my devices for free using Duplicati. So, if you want a single app that does writing and syncing in one package, MarkText alone won't get you there.
Marktext is a simple and elegant open-source markdown editor focused on speed and usability. It supports GFM, math equations, diagrams, and offers a distraction-free writing experience across platforms.
MarkText is an excellent Markdown editor despite its slow development
After cycling through paid options and overbuilt knowledge tools, MarkText has become my go-to Markdown editor. It gets out of the way when I want to write, gives me the controls I need when I want to tinker, and produces clean Markdown files I can take to any other app tomorrow. The stalled development would worry me in a complex app with a network layer, but for a local Markdown editor, it just means the app has settled into what it is.
If you only need a Markdown editor and nothing else, MarkText is hard to beat. Pair it with whatever folder sync setup you already use, and you've got a writing workflow that costs nothing and will likely outlive whatever app trend comes next.
