nvim-markdown-preview

Markdown preview in the browser using pandoc and live-server through Neovim's job-control API.

Usage

Open a markdown file in vim and run :MarkdownPreview. The preview opens in a new browser tab which will be reloaded whenever you :write the buffer. If you accidentally close your browser tab or want to change the theme just run the command again. The file needs to be written to disk before you can start the preview.

Features

• Asynchronous
• Produces "standalone" html files (injected css)
• Custom themes (github, solarized-dark, solarized-light)
• Auto-reloads browser tab on save
• Serves assets from the current working directory (embed pictures in your markdown etc.)
• Custom markdown input formats
  • pandoc markdown
• KaTeX for formatting LaTeX math
• Syntax highlighting from the Kate Editor themes

Requirements

• pandoc
• live-server (Node.js)

pandoc and live-server executables should be installed and accessible in your $PATH.

Pandoc

Pandoc should be available in most Linux distributions and on macOS via brew and Windows via chocolatey.

On macOS using Homebrew:

brew install pandoc

For Linux:

• Ubuntu sudo apt install pandoc

• Fedora sudo dnf install pandoc

For Windows:

Either download the executable or get it with Chocolatey

choco install pandoc

For other systems please see the links in the description on how to install.

live-server

Assuming you have Node.js installed:

npm install -g @compodoc/live-server

See this issue on why the live-server fork is preferred.

Installation

If you are using vim-plug

Plug 'davidgranstrom/nvim-markdown-preview'

source the file (:source %) (or restart vim) and then run :PlugInstall

Documentation

Usage

There is only a single command:

:MarkdownPreview [theme]    Starts the browser preview of the current file.
                            Optional argument to select a theme.

                            The available themes are currently:
                            * github
                            * solarized-light
                            * solarized-dark

Customization

Set this variable in your init.vim to specify a default theme for the preview. The default is the GitHub theme.

let g:nvim_markdown_preview_theme = 'solarized-light'

Set this variable to specify the pandoc input format (--format/-f) option. The default is gfm (GitHub flavored markdown).

let g:nvim_markdown_preview_format = 'markdown'

Take a look at :help nvim-markdown-preview for complete documentation and examples.

Screenshots

Q & A

Q: Why doesn't the preview update in real-time while I type in vim?

A: This plugin simply doesn't work like that. It only aims to provide some live update capabilities around what is essentially :w !pandoc % -o /tmp/file.html

Q: I want the preview tab to open automatically without typing :MarkdownPreview

A: Sure, use an autocmd like:

autocmd FileType markdown MarkdownPreview

Or the <Plug> mapping to bind it to the key of your choice

nmap <cr> <plug>(nvim-markdown-preview)

TODO

The markdown file must be written to disk first. It should be possible to use Pandoc stdin and pipe the buffer content using jobsend() instead.

License

GPL v3

nvim-markdown-preview
Copyright (C) 2018 David Granström

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, or
(at your option) any later version.

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/>.