A lightweight GTK 3 markdown viewer for desktop Linux. It is ideal as your default app for opening .md files. Uses the excellent library md4c for markdown parsing. This project is sort of a companion app/fork of my other markdown project TrayMD.

Features

Native GTK viewer - No webviews
Read-only rendering - Focused on viewing markdown files
Minimal UI - Clean toolbar with open and settings buttons
Lightweight - Pure C, no web technologies, fast startup
Hyperlink support - Left click opens links and internal anchors
Document search - Ctrl+F with next/previous match navigation

Supported Markdown

Syntax	Description
`# Header 1`	Large bold header
`## Header 2`	Medium bold header
`### Header 3`	Small bold header
`bold`	Bold text
`italic`	Italic text
`code`	Inline code
`...`	Code block
`- item`	List item
`> quote`	Block quote
`[text](url)`	Link
`~~strike~~`	Strikethrough
`\| table \| row \|`	Markdown tables
`---`	Horizontal rule

Code blocks currently support a beta version of keyword highlighting for fenced languages c, java, and python.

Installation

Arch Linux (AUR)

https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/viewmd

Debian/Ubuntu (.deb)

Install a built .deb package with:

sudo apt install ./viewmd_*.deb

Fedora/RHEL (.rpm)

Install a built .rpm package with:

sudo dnf install ./viewmd-*.rpm

Usage

Run viewmd to start the application.

Open button: Open a markdown document
Reload button: Reload the currently open document from disk
Settings button: Adjust theme, fonts, and markdown accent colors

Find in Document

Press Ctrl+F to open search.
Type to highlight matches as you search.
Press Enter for next match and Shift+Enter for previous match.
Press Esc to close search.

Set as Default `.md` Viewer

After installing, associate markdown MIME types with viewmd.desktop:

xdg-mime default viewmd.desktop text/markdown
xdg-mime default viewmd.desktop text/x-markdown

Verify the current default:

xdg-mime query default text/markdown

Test by opening a markdown file through your desktop association:

xdg-open README.md

Building From Source

make
sudo make install

This installs:

Binary to /usr/local/bin/viewmd
Desktop file to /usr/local/share/applications/viewmd.desktop

Uninstallation

sudo make uninstall

Dependencies

Arch Linux

sudo pacman -S gtk3

Ubuntu/Debian

sudo apt install libgtk-3-dev

Fedora

sudo dnf install gtk3-devel

Packaging Templates

Arch: packaging/arch/PKGBUILD
Debian: packaging/deb/control.in
RPM: packaging/rpm/viewmd.spec.in

License

MIT License

Other Useful Projects

TrayMD is an app for taking notes in markdown with live editing TrayMD
Preditor is an image viewer with a similar philosophy to viewmd preditor
Try my AI panel plugin for XFCE XFCE Ask
For a feature complete AI application try out ChatGTK
A lightweight speech to text implementation Auriscribe
A lightweight local movie database and browser ReelVault

README.md

ViewMD