MarkDown Reader › Markdown support

Which Markdown MarkDown Reader reads

We ran 52 CommonMark and GitHub Flavored Markdown features through the app's renderer and wrote down what happens. Version 1.7 supports 29 of them fully and 7 partly. 16 aren't supported yet. Rows marked New in 1.7 improved since 1.6.

Block structure

Feature	Status	Syntax	What the app does
ATX headings	Supported	## Title	Levels 1 to 6, optional closing hashes, slug ids for the TOC.
Setext heading, H1	Supported	Title =====
Setext heading, H2	Not yet	Title -----	Renders as a paragraph followed by a horizontal rule.
Paragraphs and blank lines	Supported
Horizontal rule	Supported	--- * * * - - -
Fenced code, ``` and ~~~	Supported	```python	Language class is applied and highlight.js colours it.
Indented code (4 spaces)	Partial	code	Works after another block. At the very start of a document it renders as a paragraph.
Blockquotes	Supported	> quote	Nesting, lists inside, and lazy continuation all work.
Bullet lists	Supported	- item	-, * and + all accepted.
Ordered lists	Supported New in 1.7	5. five	1. and 1) both work. A list that starts at 5 now numbers from 5.
Nested lists, space indented	Supported	- a - b	2 or 4 spaces per level.
Nested lists, tab indented	Not yet	- a - b	The nested items become a code block.
Loose lists, multi-paragraph items	Supported
Code fence inside a list item	Partial	- a ```js	Fine when indented 2 spaces. Indented 4 spaces it renders as broken inline code.
Lazy continuation, unindented	Supported New in 1.7	- a b	An unindented line now continues the item, as the spec says.
GFM tables	Supported	| a | b | |---|---|	Alignment row, inline formatting in cells, missing closing pipe.
Table without leading pipe	Not yet	a | b --|--	Renders as a paragraph.
Escaped pipe in a table cell	Not yet	| `x\|y` |	The cell still splits at the pipe.
Task lists	Supported	- [ ] todo	Beyond spec: clickable, with notes and file attachments written back to the file.
Raw HTML block	Partial	<details> ...	Only when the line starts with an allow-listed tag. center, video, img, a and h1 to h6 lines are escaped.
HTML comment	Supported	<!-- x -->
Collapsible details and summary, mid-line	Partial New in 1.7	1. Q? <details> <summary>A</summary>…</details>	Works when </details> ends the answer line, the shape Claude Code writes, and the list stays whole. If </details> sits on a line of its own inside the list, the opening tag is still shown as text.
Display math	Supported	$$ ... $$	KaTeX, with copy-as-LaTeX.
YAML front matter	Supported New in 1.7	--- title: x ---	Hidden, so the document starts at its first real line. A document that merely opens with a rule is left alone.
GFM alerts	Not yet	> [!NOTE]	Renders as a blockquote with a literal [!NOTE].
Footnotes	Not yet	text[^1]	Both the reference and the definition are literal text.
Definition lists	Not yet	Term : def	Extension syntax, not CommonMark.

Inline formatting

Feature	Status	Syntax	What the app does
Bold, italic, bold-italic	Supported	**b** *i* ***bi***	Nested emphasis works.
Intraword underscore	Supported New in 1.7	snake_case_name	Stays as written. Underscores inside a word no longer open italics.
Strikethrough	Partial	~~gone~~	Double tilde works. GFM also accepts a single tilde, which stays literal.
Inline code	Supported	`code`	Spans that look like a relative file path become clickable (macOS).
Double-backtick code span	Not yet	`` a ` b ``	Splits into two spans and a stray backtick.
Backslash escapes	Supported	\* \#
Hard line break, two spaces	Supported	a ⏎
Hard line break, backslash	Not yet	a\⏎	The backslash is printed and the lines join.
Inline math	Supported	$x^2$	Deliberately stricter delimiters than pandoc.
Inline HTML	Partial New in 1.7	a<br>b x<sup>2</sup>	Fifteen formatting tags now render inside text: br, wbr, kbd, sup, sub, mark, ins, del, s, u, small, abbr, span, details and summary. Tags that carry a link or an image (a, img) are still shown as text, on purpose.
HTML entities	Supported New in 1.7	&copy; &nbsp;	Render as the character, so &copy; shows ©.
Emoji shortcodes	Not yet	:smile:	Extension syntax. Real emoji characters render fine.
Highlight, superscript, subscript	Not yet	==x== ^2^ ~2~	Extension syntax, not CommonMark. The <mark>, <sup> and <sub> tags work instead.

Links and media

Feature	Status	Syntax	What the app does
Inline links	Supported	[t](url "title")
Link with parentheses in URL	Not yet	[a](https://w/Foo_(bar))	Cuts at the first closing paren. Wikipedia links break.
Angle-bracket URL	Not yet	[a](<url with spaces>)	The brackets end up inside the href.
Autolinks in angle brackets	Supported	<https://x> <me@x.com>
Bare URL autolink	Supported New in 1.7	see https://x.com	Linked, with trailing punctuation left outside the link.
Reference-style links and images	Not yet	[t][id] [id]: url	Reference and definition both render as literal text.
Images	Supported	
Heading anchors	Partial	[go](#section)	Works for ASCII. Non-ASCII letters are dropped from the slug, so "Héllo" is #hllo.
Custom heading ids	Not yet	## T {#id}	Extension syntax. The braces are shown in the heading.

Rendering extensions

Feature	Status	Syntax	What the app does
Syntax highlighting	Supported	```swift	highlight.js, themed for light and dark.
LaTeX math	Supported	$ $ $$ $$	KaTeX.
Mermaid diagrams	Not yet	```mermaid	Shown as a code block.

Interactive checklists, notes and file attachments go beyond the Markdown standard and are counted as supported. Features that aren't Markdown syntax, such as tabs, the table of contents, search and PDF export, aren't listed. Tested 2026-10-11.