Scribe is a Markdown editor for GNOME that renders formatted text directly in the document as it is edited.
Unlike editors that require a separate preview pane or an embedded browser engine to display formatted Markdown, Scribe applies formatting to the underlying text buffer. Headings, emphasis and other Markdown elements are presented visually while the original source remains editable.
The application is designed for writing notes, documentation and other Markdown documents. It uses GTK4, libadwaita and GtkSourceView to provide a native desktop interface, with documents stored as ordinary Markdown files rather than in a proprietary database.
Scribe also offers a range of writing tools and document presentation options, including configurable syntax visibility and PDF export.
This is free and open source software.
Key Features
- Live Markdown rendering directly within the editing buffer.
- Supports headings, bold, italic, strikethrough, code blocks, quotations, links, footnotes, tables and task lists.
- Configurable Markdown syntax visibility, with options to dim, conceal or reveal formatting markers.
- Focus mode dims surrounding paragraphs to reduce distractions.
- Typewriter mode keeps the editing cursor vertically centred.
- Optional split preview displays a rendered view alongside the document.
- Displays local images and supports remote images with disk caching.
- Renders YouTube links as thumbnail cards that open videos in the default browser.
- Provides search and replace, document outline navigation and recently opened files.
- Supports automatic list continuation and renumbering of ordered lists.
- Includes spell checking with suggestions and dictionary management.
- PDF export with configurable typography, page layouts, themes and print preview.
- Supports custom stylesheets for controlling PDF output.
- Configurable autosave, atomic file writes and unsaved-changes warnings.
- Light and dark appearance with English and Spanish interface translations.
Website: github.com/gnacho/scribe
Support:
Developer: gnacho
License: GNU Affero General Public License v3.0
Scribe is written in Rust. Learn Rust with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
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Read our verdict in the software roundup.
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