Markdown Viewer

Open this page, then choose the file with Open file, drop it onto the viewer, or paste its text into the editor. It opens as a formatted page straight away, with headings, lists, tables, links and code the way GitHub shows them, and there is nothing to install or sign up for. Any text editor can open a .md file too, such as Notepad, TextEdit or VS Code, but there you read the raw text with its # and * marks rather than the page they describe. VS Code shows a formatted preview if you press Ctrl+Shift+V (Cmd+Shift+V on a Mac), and Notepad on Windows 11 can show basic formatting once Formatting is switched on in its settings.

No. Your browser reads the file and draws the page inside this one. It is not sent to pagegoat or to anyone else, and nothing is kept after you close the tab, which matters when the file is a contract draft, a client report or notes an assistant wrote from your own documents. Two things can go over the network, and neither carries your text: if the document has a Mermaid diagram, the library that draws it loads from a public CDN, and an image in the file that points to a web address loads from wherever it is hosted. The document itself only leaves your browser if you choose Get a free link, which puts the page online as a short-lived public link, or the paid upload, which needs you to sign in.

Open the file here, check the preview, then choose Save and PDF. Your browser's print window opens with the formatted page; pick Save as PDF as the destination and save. The page has its own print styles, so the PDF comes out as dark text on white even if your screen is in dark mode, and tables, code blocks, equations and diagrams are kept off page breaks where they fit on one page. The date and web address at the top and bottom of each page are your browser's headers and footers, and you can switch them off in the print window's settings for a cleaner document. Nothing is uploaded to make the PDF: your own browser writes it.

Word opens a .md file as plain text, so you get the # and ** marks rather than headings and bold. The quick way across is to open the file here, choose Copy and then Formatted text, and paste into your document: headings, bold, lists, links, tables and code arrive as real formatting you can edit, in Word, Google Docs, Gmail or Outlook. Google Docs can also import a .md file itself through File, Open, Upload, and it can paste Markdown as formatting once Enable Markdown is ticked under Tools, Preferences. What a document can't keep is a Mermaid diagram, which word processors don't draw; save the page as a PDF if you need the diagrams too.

Because the file points to images that didn't come with it. Markdown doesn't contain its pictures; it refers to them, and a reference like images/chart.png means a file in the folder next to the .md on the author's computer, or in their repository. This viewer only has the one file you opened, so an image referenced that way can't load, while one written with a full web address, starting https://, loads normally. It is the most common gap when you open a README on its own, away from its repository. If you wrote the document, link each image by its full web address, and the pictures will show wherever the file goes: in this viewer, on GitHub, in a PDF you make from it, or on a shared link.

Yes. A README is a Markdown file, and the viewer follows GitHub Flavored Markdown, the dialect READMEs are written for: tables, task lists, strikethrough, plain web addresses as links, and footnotes. It also renders what GitHub added later: alerts written > [!NOTE] or > [!WARNING], Mermaid diagrams, math between dollar signs, and front matter as a table. Headings get the ids GitHub gives them, so a README's own table of contents works, and HTML inside it renders the way GitHub allows, so details, kbd and centred logos work while scripts and styles are removed. The styling is GitHub's, light or dark to match your system. The one gap is anything that points to another file in the repository, such as an image at images/logo.png, because only the README came with you.

Math is LaTeX, typeset with KaTeX. Put it between single dollar signs for math inside a sentence and between double dollar signs for an equation on its own line, which is how GitHub, Obsidian and Claude write it. ChatGPT writes \( … \) and \[ … \] instead, and those work too, so an answer copied out of ChatGPT renders without edits, while prices such as $20 stay as text. Diagrams are Mermaid: a code block that opens with ```mermaid becomes a flowchart, sequence diagram, Gantt chart, class, state or ER diagram, pie chart, mind map or any other type Mermaid draws. A diagram with a mistake in it shows the error above its source, so you can fix it in the editor and watch it redraw.

Yes, more than most formats. A .md file is plain text and can't run anything by itself. The risk is HTML written inside it, and the viewer removes the dangerous parts before showing it: scripts, styles, forms, embedded frames and handlers such as onclick. What is left is shown inside a sandboxed frame with its own locked-down origin, so even a bug in a library couldn't reach this site's cookies or storage. A document can still contain a link to a bad website, or an image from a server that notices you opened it, the same as an email can. Read it freely, but think twice before following a link or typing a password anywhere it sends you.

Download the file the assistant made and open it here, or copy the answer and paste it into the editor; the copy button under a reply in Claude or ChatGPT gives you Markdown. Either way it renders as a page, with headings, tables, highlighted code, math and Mermaid diagrams included. From there you can read it at a comfortable width, save it as a PDF, copy it as formatted text into Google Docs or Word, or download it as an .html page that opens in any browser. If what the assistant gave you is HTML or a React artifact rather than Markdown, the HTML viewer and the Claude artifact viewer on this site do the same job for those.

Send a link instead of the file. A .md attachment makes everyone you send it to find a viewer, and on a phone most of them will see the raw text. A link opens as a formatted page on any device, and it shows the latest version when you replace the file behind it. If the document can be public, GitHub and GitHub Gist render Markdown for free. Pagegoat is for the documents that shouldn't be public: put one behind a password, limit it to people you name, or ask each reader for their email, and let them comment on the exact sentence they mean. For a page someone only needs today, Get a free link under the viewer makes a short-lived public link with no account. Links that last start at $2.99 a month.