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Markdown Viewers on macOS: Terminal and Browser Options

TL;DR: Render markdown from terminal using glow (for terminal viewing), mdcat (for rich formatting), grip (for GitHub-accurate previews with images), or pandoc (for document conversion and flexibility).

Overview#

Markdown is the standard format for documentation, notes, READMEs, and technical writing. macOS users have several options for viewing it from the command line, ranging from simple terminal renderers to full-featured browser previews with image support. The right tool depends on your workflow:

  • Terminal-only with attractive formatting: glow or mdcat
  • GitHub-accurate previews with images: grip
  • Document conversion to PDF/HTML: pandoc

Glow#

  • What it is: One of the most popular terminal Markdown viewers with attractive formatting
  • GitHub: charmbracelet/glow
  • Latest Release: v1.5.1 (January 2025)
  • Installation: 
    > brew install glow
  • Usage: 
    > glow README.md
    See glow documentation for advanced options and paging modes.

Glow terminal output displaying formatted markdown

  • Advantages:
    • Fancy terminal interface with multiple themes
    • Fast and lightweight
    • Great for reading documentation
    • No dependencies beyond the binary
  • Disadvantages:
    • Does not display images inline
    • Terminal-only

  • Best for: Everyday terminal documentation reading

  • Tips and tricks:

  • Disable pager

    > more /Users/saggese/Library/Preferences/glow/glow.yml
# style name or JSON path (default "auto")
style: "auto"
# mouse support (TUI-mode only)
mouse: true
# use pager to display markdown
#pager: true
# word-wrap at width
width: 80
# show all files, including hidden and ignored.
all: false
# line-numbers: true

    > glow -l --tui website/docs/blog/posts/draft.how_to.Render_md_from_terminal.md

TUI vs Pager modes:

  • TUI (Terminal User Interface): Interactive full-screen mode with keyboard navigation. Glow enters full-screen, lets you scroll, search, and navigate with arrow keys and hotkeys. Best for exploring long documents.
  • Pager: Pipes output through a pager like less, streaming content progressively. Familiar if you're used to less, more, or man pages.

mdcat#

  • What it is: Rich Markdown renderer written in Rust with advanced formatting support
  • GitHub: swsnr/mdcat
  • Latest Release: v0.32.1 (October 2024)
  • Installation: 
    > brew install mdcat
  • Usage: 
    > mdcat README.md
    For image rendering, see mdcat terminal support.

mdcat terminal rendering with rich formatting and syntax highlighting

  • Advantages:
    • Good formatting quality
    • Handles tables and syntax highlighting well
    • Supports hyperlinks
    • Can display inline images in compatible terminals
  • Disadvantages:
    • Image support depends on terminal capabilities
    • More complex than Glow
  • Works best with: Terminal emulators that support image protocols:
    • Kitty (native image protocol support)
    • WezTerm (sixel and image support)
    • iTerm2 (inline image support)
  • Best for: Terminal users who want rich formatting and image support

Grip#

  • What it is: Renders Markdown exactly as GitHub would, served locally through a web browser
  • GitHub: joeyespo/grip
  • Latest Release: v4.6.1 (January 2024)
  • Installation: 
    > pip install grip
  • Usage: 
    > grip README.md
    Then open http://localhost:6419
    • Using uvx 
      > uvx grip website/docs/blog/posts/draft.how_to.Render_md_from_terminal.md -b --quiet
      See grip's feature list for rendering customization.

Grip browser view showing GitHub-flavored markdown rendering

  • Advantages:
    • GitHub-flavored Markdown rendering
    • Full image support
    • Good table rendering
    • Matches GitHub appearance exactly
  • Disadvantages:
    • Requires a web browser
    • Runs a local web server
  • Best for: Previewing work before pushing to GitHub

mdless#

  • What it is: Pager-like interface for reading Markdown with familiar navigation
  • GitHub: ttscoff/mdless
  • Latest Release: v2.1.17 (March 2025)
  • Installation: 
    > brew install mdless
  • Usage: 
    > mdless README.md
  • Advantages:
    • Simple and lightweight
    • Familiar pager interface (less-like)
    • Good for large documents
  • Disadvantages:
    • Limited styling compared to other tools
    • No image rendering
  • Best for: Reading long documents with familiar pager shortcuts

rich-cli#

  • What it is: Colorful terminal rendering built on Python's Rich library
  • GitHub: Textualize/rich-cli
  • Latest Release: v1.8.1 (December 2024)
  • Installation: 
    > pip install rich-cli
  • Usage: 
    > rich README.md

> uvx --from rich-cli rich website/docs/blog/posts/draft.how_to.Render_md_from_terminal.md --pager

rich-cli colorful terminal output with rich formatting

  • Advantages:
    • Colorful terminal output
    • Easy installation via pip
    • Good Unicode support
  • Disadvantages:
    • No image rendering
    • Fewer features than mdcat
  • Best for: Quick terminal previews with minimal setup

Pandoc#

  • What it is: The Swiss Army knife of document conversion with multiple output formats
  • GitHub: jgm/pandoc
  • Latest Release: v3.1.12.2 (April 2025)
  • Installation: 
    > brew install pandoc
  • Usage examples: 
    > pandoc README.md -o /tmp/readme.html
> open /tmp/readme.html

    > pandoc README.md -o README.pdf
> open README.pdf
    For advanced options and output formats, see pandoc's user guide.

Pandoc converting markdown to HTML and displaying in browser

  • Advantages:
    • Full image support
    • Multiple output formats (HTML, PDF, DOCX, etc.)
    • Highly customizable with templates
    • Industry-standard converter
  • Disadvantages:
    • More complex than dedicated viewers
    • Converts rather than previews in real-time
  • Best for: Document conversion and flexibility

Comparison Table#

Tool Terminal Images GitHub Style Browser
Glow Yes No No No
mdcat Yes Limited No No
mdless Yes No No No
rich-cli Yes No No No
Grip No Yes Yes Yes
Pandoc Optional Yes Varies Yes
  • Everyday terminal viewing: glow
  • Richer terminal rendering: mdcat
  • GitHub-accurate previews: grip
  • Document conversion: pandoc
  • Image rendering: Browser-based solutions (grip or pandoc to HTML) work best on macOS

Beyond Individual Tools#

I've built a tool called open_md.py that combines the strengths of all these approaches. It supports multiple rendering backends (pandoc, grip), integrates with Docker, and automatically preprocesses embedded diagrams. See the helpers_open_md blog post works, or check out the open_md.py source code directly.