leaftext is a calm desktop application for reading Markdown files. It is not a text editor, not a browser tab, and not a cloud service — it is a single-purpose tool that opens aDocumentation Index
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.md file and renders it exactly as it was meant to be read. No distractions, no latency, no accounts required. Just open a file and read it.
The goal is a quiet reading experience: the kind you get from a well-typeset document, available instantly from your local filesystem.
What leaftext renders
leaftext provides full CommonMark + GitHub Flavored Markdown (GFM) support, covering headings (H1–H6), paragraphs, bold, italic, bold-italic, blockquotes, ordered and unordered lists, tables, strikethrough, task lists, autolink literals, horizontal rules, and escaped Markdown characters. On top of the baseline spec, leaftext also handles the GitHub extras you rely on in real documents:- Syntax-highlighted code blocks — powered by syntect, with theme-aware colours in both light and dark modes
- Mermaid diagrams — rendered inline, with a readable plain-text fallback if the diagram cannot be parsed
- Inline and block math — LaTeX expressions rendered natively, with a readable fallback
- Alert callouts — GitHub-style
> [!NOTE],> [!TIP],> [!WARNING],> [!IMPORTANT], and> [!CAUTION]blocks - Footnotes — with back-references so you can jump between a footnote marker and its definition
- Emoji shortcodes —
:shipit:and the full set of GitHub-supported codes - Issue, PR, and commit references —
#123,org/repo#456, and full commit SHAs linkified - User and team mentions —
@usernameand@org/teamrendered as links
./, ../), paths with spaces, nested directories, and SVG files all resolve from the opened file’s location through a scoped custom protocol — no web server needed.
How it works
leaftext is a native Rust application. Windowing is handled by tao and the document is displayed inside a wry WebView — a platform-native web renderer (WKWebView on macOS, WebView2 on Windows, WebKitGTK on Linux). This means leaftext has a real native window and OS integration while still being able to render rich HTML output from Markdown. Markdown parsing is done by pulldown-cmark. Before the rendered HTML is handed to the WebView, it passes through ammonia for sanitization: scripts, styles, event handlers, and dangerous URLs are stripped, while the full set of safe GFM HTML tags is preserved. The result is a rendering pipeline that is both complete and safe — you can open any Markdown file without worrying about what it might contain.leaftext uses your operating system’s built-in WebView, so no Chromium or
Electron runtime is bundled. The binary stays small and startup is near
instant.
What leaftext is not
leaftext is a reader, not an editor. There is no text input, no preview pane split, and no save function. If you want to edit a file, open it in your editor of choice; leaftext will reflect file changes automatically. It is also not a browser extension, not a hosted service, and not a subscription product. Your files never leave your machine.Where to go next
Installation
Download the pre-built binary for macOS, Windows, or Linux and get leaftext
running in under a minute.
Quickstart
Open your first file, explore the minimap, and learn the handful of
keyboard shortcuts that cover the whole app.