Markdown Editor & Rich Text for VS Code, by Zovo

Edit Markdown files as rich text, the way you write in a document, and keep them plain Markdown. Only the paragraph, list or table you change is rewritten. Everything you do not touch stays byte-identical, so diffs stay small and hand-written formatting is safe.

Free, with no limits

• Headings, bold, italic, strikethrough, inline code and links, with toolbar buttons and the usual keys (Ctrl+B, Ctrl+I, Ctrl+K; Cmd on macOS).
• Bulleted, numbered and task lists: Enter adds an item, Tab indents, a click ticks a task.
• Tables: edit cells in place, add or remove rows and columns, filter rows while you read.
• Code blocks with their language, quotes, horizontal rules.
• Images from the file's folder show inline. Paste a screenshot and it is saved next to the file with a relative link.
• Front matter, HTML, footnotes, link references and anything unusual stay as editable Markdown source in place, never rewritten.
• Undo, redo, save, hot exit and Git diffs work as with any text file. "Reopen as text" switches to the normal editor at any time.
• Opt-in: the normal Markdown editor stays the default. Open a file here from the Explorer menu or the pencil button.

Pro tools

Zovo Pro: USD 19 once. One purchase turns on the Pro tools in every Zovo extension. Each tool here has 3 free tries first:

• Paste rich text as Markdown: rich text from word processors, email and web pages, with headings, nested lists, tables, links, bold and italic, and without the styles and layout markup.
• CSV or Excel to a table: a CSV, TSV or .xlsx file becomes an aligned Markdown table where you are writing. Sort any table by a column.
• Find and replace in a folder: text or a regular expression across every Markdown file of a folder, with a preview of each change before it is made.

How it keeps your file intact

The editor splits the file into blocks (a paragraph, a list, a table, a code block) and remembers where each one is in the text. When you change a block, only that block's text is replaced. A block opens as rich text only when the editor can write it back exactly as it was. Otherwise it opens as Markdown source in place. Emphasis keeps the marker you used (* or _, ** or __), and links keep their original target text.

Privacy

No account, no telemetry and no network requests. Images from the web are not loaded unless you turn on zovoMd.remoteImages. Pasted images are saved only next to your file.

Limits in this version

• Lists with multi-line items or nested blocks, and quotes that contain lists or headings, open as Markdown source.
• Setext headings (underlined with === or ---) stay setext; a level change writes an ATX heading.
• Editing a table rewrites that table with aligned columns.
• A link's address is edited in source mode, or by selecting the text and pressing Ctrl+K again.
• Files over 8 MB are best edited with Reopen as text.

Support Zovo

Zovo Pro: USD 19 once, every Zovo viewer. Get Zovo Pro on GitHub Sponsors to turn on the Pro tools in this extension and in the other Zovo extensions you use. The free features stay free.

Zovo extensions have no ads and no tracking. They are made by theluckystrike on GitHub. You can also support the work with no Pro:

• Sponsor on GitHub
• PayPal
• Follow theluckystrike on GitHub

Need your format supported?

Open a format request with a sample file, and I reply there whether it can be done. For USD 299 once, through this GitHub Sponsors tier, I add your file format or a missing feature to this extension, with tests, within 7 days.

More tools by Zovo

• PDF Viewer & PDF Reader to Read and View PDF (Dark Mode) reads PDFs with a real dark mode, search, an outline and thumbnails.
• XLSX Viewer, Excel Viewer, CSV Viewer & Parquet Viewer (XLS, CSV Preview) opens CSV, TSV, Excel and Parquet files as a sortable, filterable table.
• DOCX Viewer & ODT Viewer, Word Document Preview (Dark Mode) previews Word and ODT files with dark mode, an outline and search.

See all Zovo extensions on the Marketplace.