PlainMD

👋 Introduction

PlainMD is a simple and elegant Markdown Viewer built with Qt6.

PlainMD is partially vibe-coded with OpenCode: Kimi K2.5 Turbo / Kimi K2.6 Turbo 🤖

It provides fast, native rendering of Markdown files without external dependencies. The application features a file browser sidebar for easy navigation, supports multiple formats (Markdown, MDX, and plain text), and includes convenient features like drag-and-drop support, recent files/folders tracking, auto-reload on file changes, and export to PDF.

This project is developed with Qt 6.x (Qt 6.9.3 at the time of writing).

❗ Build Requirements

• Windows
  • Microsoft Visual Studio 2022
  • Qt SDK 6.9.3 / Qt Creator 19
• Linux
  • GCC with C++17 support
  • Qt 6 development packages:
    • qt6-base-dev (Debian/Ubuntu)
    • qt6-qtbase-devel (Fedora/openSUSE)
    • qt6-base (Arch)
  • Additional tools for packaging (optional):
    • dpkg-deb — for .deb packages
    • flatpak-builder + KDE Platform 6.7 — for Flatpak
    • linuxdeploy + linuxdeploy-plugin-qt — for AppImage

🖼️ Screenshots

✨ Features

• Native Qt6 markdown rendering - Fast, native rendering without external dependencies
• File browser sidebar - Browse and open markdown files with a tree view
• Document Outline - Navigate headings hierarchically in the sidebar; click to jump
• Multiple format support - Markdown (.md), MDX (.mdx), and plain text (.txt)
• Drag and drop support - Open files and folders by dragging them into the window
• Recent files & folders - Quick access with separate history and privacy toggles
• Navigation History - Go back/forward through recently viewed files with Alt+← / Alt+→
• Auto-reload on file change - Detects external file modifications and prompts to reload
• Manual Reload (F5) - Unconditionally refresh the current file from disk
• Zen Mode (F11) - Distraction-free reading; hides all chrome, restore with F11 or Escape
• Zoom controls - Zoom in/out with Ctrl++ and Ctrl+-
• Word wrap toggle - Toggle line wrapping with Ctrl+W
• Enhanced Find (Ctrl+F) - Case sensitive, whole words, and regular expression search
• Find Next (F3) - Continue the last search with all options preserved
• Search in Files (Ctrl+Shift+F) - Search across all markdown files in the loaded folder
• Minimap - Document overview with color-coded content types; toggle with F10
• Print & Export - Print to physical printer or export directly to PDF
• Export to HTML - Simple HTML or self-contained HTML (images inlined as base64)
• Copy File/Folder Path - Right-click in the sidebar to copy paths or reveal in Explorer
• External editor integration - Open files with your preferred editor
• Privacy options - Toggle external image loading, recent history, and navigation history
• URL tooltips - Hover over links to see resolved absolute paths
• YAML frontmatter display - Shows frontmatter as a code block
• CLI support - Pass a file or folder path as a command-line argument

📥 Downloads

Windows

PlainMD v1.4.1 (win64-installer)

PlainMD v1.4.1 (win64-zip)

Linux

PlainMD v1.4.1 (amd64-deb)

PlainMD v1.4.1 (x86_64-AppImage)

PlainMD v1.4.1 (x86_64-flatpak)

💻 Source

Available on GitHub

Get it on Codeberg

🏛️ License

PlainMD
Copyright (C) 2026 BrainByteZ

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program.  If not, see <https://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.

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