Markdown Warrior Preview

Markdown Warrior Preview is a polished Markdown preview extension for VS Code. It turns plain .md files into a readable, presentation-ready document view with rich layouts, full theme packs, diagrams, math, syntax highlighting, and export tools.

It is built for people who write serious Markdown: technical notes, specs, project documentation, teaching material, internal docs, talks, and long-form knowledge bases.

Why Use It

VS Code already has a Markdown preview, but it is intentionally simple. Markdown Warrior Preview is for moments when the preview should feel closer to a finished document:

• Your document needs structure, hierarchy, and breathing room.
• Code blocks, math, diagrams, and tables should look intentional.
• Long documents should remain comfortable to scan and read.
• Notes should become slides without leaving VS Code.
• Theme choice should belong to the document preview, not only to the editor.

Highlights

Rich Document Layouts

Switch between multiple layout modes from the toolbar:

• Auto - chooses a layout based on document shape.
• Docs - clean long-form reading with section navigation.
• Magazine - editorial layout for narrative or announcement-style content.
• Story - immersive section-by-section reading.
• Dashboard - card-based overview for dense structured documents.

Layouts are content-aware, use balanced cards, and avoid clipping important text by default.

12 Built-In Theme Packs

Pick a complete preview theme from the side panel. A theme pack changes:

• Preview colors
• Markdown UI colors
• Syntax highlighting theme
• Font stack
• Radius and surface styling

Included themes:

• Catppuccin Mocha
• GitHub Dark
• Dracula
• Tokyo Night
• Nord
• High Contrast Dark
• Vesper
• Pitch Black (OLED)
• Catppuccin Latte
• GitHub Light
• Sepia
• Solarized Light

Theme selection is saved globally with VS Code globalState, so it persists across files and sessions.

Markdown That Feels Complete

Markdown Warrior Preview supports the content blocks common in real documentation:

• Mermaid diagrams
• KaTeX inline and block math
• Shiki syntax highlighting
• YAML frontmatter display
• Tables
• Images with local path resolution
• Task lists with clickable checkboxes
• Collapsible h2 and h3 sections
• Table of contents navigation
• Two-way editor/preview scroll sync

Presentation Mode

Use Markdown as a lightweight slide format:

• Split slides with horizontal rules (---)
• Navigate with keyboard controls
• Add speaker notes in comments
• Exit quickly with Esc
• Keep source and presentation in one file

Example:

# Project Review

What changed this week.

---

## Highlights

- Released a new preview theme system
- Improved long-document reading
- Packaged a clean VSIX

<!-- notes: Mention the theme persistence behavior. -->

---

## Next

- Collect user feedback
- Polish Marketplace listing

Export

Export rendered Markdown when you need to share outside VS Code:

• Export as HTML
• Export as PDF through browser print flow

Getting Started

1. Open a Markdown file in VS Code.
2. Run Markdown Warrior: Open Preview from the Command Palette.
3. Use the toolbar to change layout, open the theme panel, or enter presentation mode.

The preview updates as you edit the source file.

Commands

Settings

Frontmatter

Some layouts respond to document structure and metadata. You can guide layout selection with frontmatter:

---
title: Quarterly Planning
layout: dashboard
---

# Quarterly Planning

...

Supported layout values:

• magazine
• docs
• story
• dashboard

If no layout is set, Auto mode chooses based on document content.

Requirements

• VS Code 1.80 or newer

Good Fits

Markdown Warrior Preview works well for:

• Engineering specs
• Architecture notes
• Product briefs
• Internal documentation
• Learning material
• Markdown-based presentations
• Personal knowledge bases
• Release notes and project reports

License

MIT