Utilities

Excellent Utilities: mdless – formatted and highlighted view of Markdown files

Last Updated on May 22, 2022

This is a new series highlighting best-of-breed utilities. We’ll be covering a wide range of utilities including tools that boost your productivity, help you manage your workflow, and lots more besides.

I recently spotlighted Abricotine, an open source, cross-platform Markdown editor built for the desktop with inline preview functionality. Continuing the Markdown theme, this article focuses on mdless, a CLI that provides a formatted and highlighted view of Markdown files in a terminal.

If you want to view Markdown files quickly and without cruft, mdless is designed with you in mind.

The software is written in the Ruby programming language. Want to learn more about Ruby? Here’s 15 free Ruby books recommended by our contributor Erik Karlsson.

Installation

If you’ve ever used Ruby software, you’ll know that gem offers an easy way of installing Ruby packages. At a shell, type:

$ gem install mdless

This installs mdless to /home/$USERNAME/.gem/ruby/2.6.0/bin. You’ll need to ensure this directory is in your user $PATH.

Assuming you’re running bash, open the file ~/.bashrc in your preferred text editor and add the following line to the end of that file:

export PATH=$PATH:/home/sde/.gem/ruby/2.6.0/bin

You’ll need to replace sde with your username. Then you’ll either need to log out of the shell, or type:

source ~/.bashrc.

You’ll also need to install imgcat, a utility like cat but for images.

Next page: Page 2 – In Operation

Pages in this article:
Page 1 – Introduction / Installation
Page 2 – In Operation
Page 3 – Other Features
Page 4 – Summary


Complete list of articles in this series:

Excellent Utilities
AES CryptEncrypt files using the Advanced Encryption Standard
AnanicyShell daemon created to manage processes’ IO and CPU priorities
brootNext gen tree explorer and customizable launcher
CerebroFast application launcher
cheat.shCommunity driven unified cheat sheet
CopyQAdvanced clipboard manager
crocSecurely transfer files and folders from the command-line
DeskreenLive streaming your desktop to a web browser
dufDisk usage utility with more polished presentation than the classic df
ezaA turbo-charged alternative to the venerable ls command
Extension ManagerBrowse, install and manage GNOME Shell Extensions
fdWonderful alternative to the venerable find
fkillKill processes quick and easy
fontpreviewQuickly search and preview fonts
horcruxFile splitter with encryption and redundancy
KoohaSimple screen recorder
KOReaderDocument viewer for a wide variety of file formats
ImagineA simple yet effective image optimization tool
LanguageToolStyle and grammar checker for 30+ languages
Liquid PromptAdaptive prompt for Bash & Zsh
lnavAdvanced log file viewer for the small-scale; great for troubleshooting
lsdLike exa, lsd is a turbo-charged alternative to ls
Mark TextSimple and elegant Markdown editor
McFlyNavigate through your bash shell history
mdlessFormatted and highlighted view of Markdown files
notiMonitors a command or process and triggers a notification
NushellFlexible cross-platform shell with a modern feel
nvitopGPU process management for NVIDIA graphics cards
OCRmyPDFAdd OCR text layer to scanned PDFs
Oh My ZshFramework to manage your Zsh configuration
PaperworkDesigned to simplify the management of your paperwork
pastelGenerate, analyze, convert and manipulate colors
PDF Mix ToolPerform common editing operations on PDF files
pecoSimple interactive filtering tool that's remarkably useful
ripgrepRecursively search directories for a regex pattern
RnoteSketch and take handwritten notes
scrcpyDisplay and control Android devices
StickySimulates the traditional “sticky note” style stationery on your desktop
tldrSimplified and community-driven man pages
tmuxA terminal multiplexer that offers a massive boost to your workflow
TuskAn unofficial Evernote client with bags of potential
UlauncherSublime application launcher
WatsonTrack the time spent on projects
Whoogle SearchSelf-hosted and privacy-focused metasearch engine
ZellijTerminal workspace with batteries included
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