Getting Started

MDPen is a fast, native Markdown editor. It shows the same document in three ways at once: a plain-text editor for people who want to see the raw syntax, a WYSIWYG editor for people who want to write as if it were a word processor, and a reading view that looks like the finished page.

You do not have to pick one. Switch between them at any time, or put two side by side. The document is always one file on disk, and every view stays in sync.

Download MDPen from the homepage. The desktop builds for macOS, Windows, and Linux are about 8 MB and install in a few seconds. There is no account to create and nothing to configure first.

On first launch, MDPen opens to a welcome screen with two columns: your recent files on the left and your open workspace folders on the right. Use the New file, Open file, or Open folder buttons at the bottom, or drag any .md file onto the window. The same actions live in File → Open and in the sidebar.

The hint row at the bottom of the welcome screen calls out the two shortcuts you will use most: ⌘K/CtrlKsearch and ⌘//Ctrl/slash commands. Both open the command palette.

Type # Hello MDPen on the first line and press Enter twice. You have a heading. Type **bold** and you get bold text. That is the plain-text view, and it gives you complete control over the syntax.

Now click WYSIWYG at the top of the editor. The same content appears as formatted text. You can keep typing here, or use / to open a menu of blocks to insert. Whatever you write gets saved back as standard Markdown.

Finally, click Reading. This is the view you would print or share: read-only, optimized for long-form reading, with code, math, and diagrams already rendered.

The window has four regions. Learn these once and the rest of MDPen is just variations on the same layout.

1. Sidebar. Your open folders and their files live on the left. You can collapse it to a thin rail for more writing space, or hide it entirely.
2. Tabs. Each open document is a tab. A small dot next to the filename means there are unsaved changes.
3. View switcher. The segmented control in the top-right toggles between Plain, WYSIWYG, and Reading. Use the keyboard shortcut you see in Keyboard Shortcuts if you prefer not to reach for the mouse.
4. Editor. The main area is whichever view you have selected. In split mode it is the editor on the left and a live preview on the right.

That is the whole tour. Pick whatever fits what you want to do next.