About
cat for markdown
[!IMPORTANT] This repository is no longer maintained.
You can find a maintained fork at https://github.com/BIRSAx2/mdcat.
mdcat
Fancy cat for Markdown (that is, CommonMark):
$ mdcat sample.md
mdcat in WezTerm, with "One Light (base16)", "Gruvbox Light", and "Darcula (base16)" (from left to right), and JetBrains Mono as font.
Features
mdcat works best with iTerm2, WezTerm, and kitty, and a good terminal font with italic characters.
Then it
- nicely renders all basic CommonMark syntax,
- highlights code blocks with syntect,
- shows links, and also images inline in supported terminals (see above, where "Rust" is a clickable link!),
- adds jump marks for headings in iTerm2 (jump forwards and backwards with ⇧⌘↓ and ⇧⌘↑).
| Terminal | Basic syntax | Syntax highlighting | Images | Jump marks |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Basic ANSI¹ | ✓ | ✓ | ||
| Windows 10 console | ✓ | ✓ | ||
| Terminology | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |
| iTerm2 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓² | ✓ |
| kitty | ✓ | ✓ | ✓² | |
| WezTerm | ✓ | ✓ | ✓² | |
| VSCode | ✓ | ✓ | ✓² | |
| Ghostty | ✓ | ✓ | ✓² |
- mdcat requires that the terminal supports strikethrough formatting and inline links. This includes most modern terminal emulators, such as Windows Terminal, KDE Konsole, or anything based on VTE, GNOME's terminal emulation library. But mdcat likely won't work well on old terminals that lack these features (e.g. the Linux text console).
- SVG images are rendered with resvg, see SVG support.
Not supported:
- CommonMark extension for footnotes.
- Inline markup and text wrapping in table cells.
Usage
Try mdcat --help or read the mdcat(1) manpage.
Installation
- Release binaries built on Github Actions.
- These binaries are build from Git source on Github actions; you find provenance attestations at https://github.com/swsnr/mdcat/attestations.
- 3rd party packages at Repology
- You can also build
mdcatmanually withcargo install mdcat(see below for details).
mdcat can be linked or copied to mdless; if invoked as mdless it automatically uses pagination.
Building
Run cargo build --release.
Building requires libcurl.
Packaging
When packaging mdcat you may wish to include the following additional artifacts:
A symlink or hardlink from
mdlesstomdcat(see above).Shell completions for relevant shells, by invoking
mdcat --completionsafter building, e.g.$ mdcat --completions fish > /usr/share/fish/vendor_completions.d/mdcat.fish $ mdcat --completions bash > /usr/share/bash-completion/completions/mdcat $ mdcat --completions zsh > /usr/share/zsh/site-functions/_mdcat # Same for mdless if you include it $ mdless --completions fish > /usr/share/fish/vendor_completions.d/mdless.fish $ mdless --completions bash > /usr/share/bash-completion/completions/mdless $ mdless --completions zsh > /usr/share/zsh/site-functions/_mdlessA build of the man page
mdcat.1.adoc, using AsciiDoctor:$ asciidoctor -b manpage -a reproducible -o /usr/share/man/man1/mdcat.1 mdcat.1.adoc $ gzip /usr/share/man/man1/mdcat.1 # If you include a mdless as above, you may also want to support man mdless $ ln -s mdcat.1.gz /usr/share/man/man1/mdless.1.gz
Troubleshooting
mdcat can output extensive tracing information when asked to.
Run mdcat with $MDCAT_LOG=trace for complete tracing information, or with $MDCAT_LOG=mdcat::render=trace to trace only rendering.
License
Copyright Sebastian Wiesner [email protected]
Binaries are subject to the terms of the Mozilla Public License, v. 2.0, see LICENSE.
Most of the source is subject to the terms of the Mozilla Public License, v. 2.0, see LICENSE, unless otherwise noted; some files are subject to the terms of the Apache 2.0 license, see http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
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