markdown-it

Markdown parser done right. Fast and easy to extend.

Live demo

• Supports the CommonMark spec + syntax extensions + sugar (URL autolinking, typographer).
• Configurable syntax! You can add new rules and even replace existing ones.
• High speed!
• Community-written plugins and other packages on npm.

Table of content

• Install
• Usage examples
• API
• Syntax extensions
• Benchmark
• Authors
• References / Thanks
• License

Install

node.js & bower:

npm install markdown-it --save
bower install markdown-it --save

browser (CDN):

• jsDeliver CDN

Usage examples

See also:

• API documentation - for more info and examples.
• Development info - for plugins writers.

Simple

// node.js, "classic" way:
var MarkdownIt = require('markdown-it'),
    md = new MarkdownIt();
var result = md.render('# markdown-it rulezz!');

// node.js, the same, but with sugar:
var md = require('markdown-it')();
var result = md.render('# markdown-it rulezz!');

// browser without AMD, added to "window" on script load
// Note, there are no dash.
var md = window.markdownit();
var result = md.render('# markdown-it rulezz!');

Single line rendering, without paragraph wrap:

var md = require('markdown-it')();
var result = md.renderInline('__markdown-it__ rulezz!');

Init with presets and options

(*) preset define combination of active rules and options. Can be "full"|"commonmark"|"zero" or "default" if skipped.

// commonmark mode
var md = require('markdown-it')('commonmark');

// default mode
var md = require('markdown-it')();

// enable everything
var md = require('markdown-it')('full', {
  html: true,
  linkify: true,
  typographer: true
});

// full options list (defaults)
var md = require('markdown-it')({
  html:         false,        // Enable HTML tags in source
  xhtmlOut:     false,        // Use '/' to close single tags (<br />).
                              // This is only for full CommonMark compatibility.
  breaks:       false,        // Convert '\n' in paragraphs into <br>
  langPrefix:   'language-',  // CSS language prefix for fenced blocks. Can be
                              // useful for external highlighters.
  linkify:      false,        // Autoconvert URL-like text to links

  // Enable some language-neutral replacement + quotes beautification
  typographer:  false,

  // Double + single quotes replacement pairs, when typographer enabled,
  // and smartquotes on. Set doubles to '«»' for Russian, '„“' for German.
  quotes: '“”‘’',

  // Highlighter function. Should return escaped HTML,
  // or '' if the source string is not changed and should be escaped externaly.
  highlight: function (/*str, lang*/) { return ''; }
});

Plugins load

var md = require('markdown-it')()
            .use(plugin1)
            .use(plugin2, opts)
            .use(plugin3);

Syntax highlighting

Apply syntax highlighting to fenced code blocks with the highlight option:

var hljs = require('highlight.js') // https://highlightjs.org/

// Actual default values
var md = require('markdown-it')({
  highlight: function (str, lang) {
    if (lang && hljs.getLanguage(lang)) {
      try {
        return hljs.highlight(lang, str).value;
      } catch (__) {}
    }

    try {
      return hljs.highlightAuto(str).value;
    } catch (__) {}

    return ''; // use external default escaping
  }
});

API

API documentation

If you are going to write plugins - take a look at Development info.

Syntax extensions

Enabled by default:

• Tables (GFM)
• <del> (GFM strikethrough) - ~~deleted text~~

Disabled by default:

• <sup> - 19^th^
• <sub> - H~2~0
• abbreviations
• footnotes
• <ins> - ++inserted text++ (experimental)
• <mark> - ==marked text== (experimental)

* Experimental extensions can be changed later for something like Critic Markup, but you will still be able to use old-style rules via external plugins if you prefer.

Manage rules

// Activate/deactivate rules
var md = require('markdown-it')()
            .enable([ 'ins', 'mark' ])
            .disable([ 'table' ]);

// Enable everything
md = require('markdown-it')('full', {
  html: true,
  linkify: true,
  typographer: true,
});

// Manually enable rules, disabled by default:
var md = require('markdown-it')()
            .enable([
              /* core */
              'abbr',
              /* block */
              'footnote',
              'deflist',
              /* inline */
              'footnote_inline',
              'ins',
              'mark',
              'sub',
              'sup'
            ]);

Benchmark

Here is result of CommonMark spec parse at Core i5 2.4 GHz (i5-4258U):

$ benchmark/benchmark.js spec
Selected samples: (1 of 27)
 > spec

Sample: spec.txt (110610 bytes)
 > commonmark-reference x 40.42 ops/sec ±4.07% (51 runs sampled)
 > current x 74.99 ops/sec ±4.69% (67 runs sampled)
 > current-commonmark x 93.76 ops/sec ±1.23% (79 runs sampled)
 > marked-0.3.2 x 22.92 ops/sec ±0.79% (41 runs sampled)

As you can see, markdown-it doesn't pay with speed for it's flexibility. Because it's written in monomorphyc style and uses JIT inline caches effectively.

Authors

• Alex Kocharin github/rlidwka
• Vitaly Puzrin github/puzrin

markdown-it is the result of the decision of the authors who contributed to 99% of the Remarkable code to move to a project with the same authorship but new leadership (Vitaly and Alex). It's not a fork.

References / Thanks

Big thanks to John MacFarlane for his work on the CommonMark spec and reference implementations. His work saved us a lot of time during this project's development.

Related Links:

• https://github.com/jgm/CommonMark - reference CommonMark implementations in C & JS, also contains latest spec & online demo.
• http://talk.commonmark.org - CommonMark forum, good place to collaborate developers' efforts.

License

MIT