What is this?

mdfried is a markdown viewer for the terminal that renders headers as Bigger Text than the rest, if your terminal supports some graphics protocol. Not bold, not just styled, actually BIGGER, making markdown much more readable in a terminal.

Screenshots and Video

Don't believe it, just watch!

Latest test screenshot array from master

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/924d29a9-053c-44b0-8c09-39dac8c90329

Features

• Big Headers™
  Headers are actually rendered as images, or with the Text Sizing Protocol.
• Image previews with multiple graphics protocols
  Sixel, Kitty, and iTerm2 are supported in a long list of terminals. If no protocol is supported, falls back to chafa. See ratatui-image to see if your terminal does even have graphics support, and for further details. The images are "sliced" in rows, so that images scroll in and out of the viewport naturally.
• Pager with basic unix-page and Vi-style keybindings
• Search
• Links
  • Opens URLs with xdg-open (or equivalent on macos/windows).
  • Can follow local .md links.
  • Jump to headers in #kebab-case.
• URL opening
  • Can directly open a URL that serves a markdown document.
  • Can directly open github:<owner>/<repo>, if it contains a README.md on master or main.
  • Transform any URL before opening with a configurable command. For example, url_transform_command = "readable | html2text" first transforms the webpage into something like FireFox's "reader mode", and then converts to markdown.
• Syntax highlighting in codeblocks with arborium
• Mermaid diagram rendering Via internal renderer (fast) or external mermaid-cli command (accurate).
• Experimental PDF support If enabled with the pdf feature, PDF files can be opened. Only recommended for terminals that use the kitty protocol.
• Theme configuration support

Installation

Packaged in distros:

• Rust cargo: cargo install mdfried
  • From source : cargo install --path .
  • Needs a chafa package with development headers, usually called something like libchafa-dev, libchafa-devel, or just libchafa, or even just chafa.
  • If chafa is not available at all, or you don't care about it because your terminal supports some graphic protocol, then use --no-default-features.
  • If cargo install ... fails, try it with --locked, and report an issue.
• Nix flake: github:benjajaja/mdfried
• Download release .deb and binaries for Mac and Windows.

Usage

Running

mdfried ./path/to.md

If the font could not be autodetected, you may have to pick a font the first time. You should pick the same font that your terminal is using, but you could pick any. The font is rendered directly as a preview. Once confirmed, the choice is written into the configuration file.

Use --setup to force the font-setup again if the font is not right (anymore).

See --help for all options, and --print-config to see a mostly complete configuration example.

Key bindings

The keybindings should the basics of general CLI pagers. Vi-style keybindings are prioritized, but "normal" keys should be usable as well.

Type :help in the program to see the exact list, or see assets/docs/help.md.

Configuration

~/.config/mdfried/config.toml is automatically created on first run.

mdfried --print-config prints out a full example config with a full theme.

Type :help configuration in the program to see detailed explanation, or see assets/docs/help_configuration.md.

Changelog

Type :changelog or see See assets/docs/CHANGELOG.md.