EasyMD

How to use the EasyMD editor

The editor above needs no installation and no account. Click into the blank page and start writing. The Markdown symbols you type turn into real formatting right where you type them, so you can use it without having the syntax memorised.

1. Type a symbol, get the formatting

Most Markdown editors put code on the left and a preview on the right. EasyMD does not: what you type is formatted in place. Type one of these at the start of a line and press Space.

To format something you have already written, select the text. A small toolbar appears above the selection with bold, italic, underline, text colour, highlight, and link.

2. The slash (/) menu: no syntax required

Type / on an empty line to open the block menu. Keep typing to narrow the list, move through it with ↑ ↓, and insert with Enter. Ten blocks are available:

• Heading 1
• Heading 2
• Heading 3
• Bulleted list
• Numbered list
• Checklist
• Code block
• Quote
• Table
• Divider

Choosing Table opens a grid picker. Drag across it to set the number of rows and columns, and the first row becomes the header. Once the table exists, putting the cursor inside it brings up a table toolbar for adding and removing rows and columns, and you can drag a column border to change its width.

3. Images: just paste them

Take a screenshot and paste it with Ctrl + V, or drag an image file onto the editor. Either way it lands in the document and is automatically resized to at most 1280px wide, since pasting originals would fill up the browser's storage very quickly. Once inserted, drag a corner to resize it.

Images are stored inside the document itself rather than uploaded to a server, so the links can never expire. The trade-off is that a document full of screenshots gets large.

4. You do not need to think about saving

Forgetting to press save is fine here. EasyMD saves in two ways at once.

• Continuous autosave — about 1.2 seconds after you stop typing, the current state is written to your browser. That is what the indicator in the header is doing when it changes from "Saving…" to "Saved".
• A snapshot every 5 minutes — if the content has changed, a copy of the document is added to its version history, up to 20 of them. Open the history tab in the document list and one click restores an earlier state.

So even in the case where you delete everything and undo will not go back far enough, the version from five minutes ago is still there. If you want to mark a specific point yourself, press Ctrl + S.

5. Exporting

The File menu at the top is how a finished document leaves the editor.

• Markdown (.md) — the raw source, ready to move into GitHub, Obsidian, or any other editor.
• PDF — a print-ready view opens in a new window. Press "Print / Save as PDF" and choose "Save as PDF" as the destination. If pop-ups are blocked the window will not open, so allow pop-ups for this site.
• Word (.docx) — carries over headings, lists, tables, code blocks, and quotes. Images are not converted into pictures, so PDF is the better choice when the images matter.

To show a document to someone else, send them one of these files. If they open the .md file in EasyMD, they can keep editing it. The old "Copy share link" option no longer exists, though links made with it still open.

6. Where does the writing actually go?

EasyMD has no server that receives documents. What you write is stored only in the browser you are using (in localStorage) and is never sent over the network. That is also why there is no sign-up: there is no account for anything to be stored under.

The flip side deserves attention. Clearing your browser data deletes your documents too.

Anything written in a private window disappears when the window closes, and the same documents will not be on your other devices. For writing you need to keep, export a Markdown file once. If you have been working on a shared computer, delete the document from the list before you leave.

Safari users should take particular care. Safari can delete the data a site has stored, localStorage included, once 7 days of Safari use pass without you interacting with that site. Web apps added to the Home Screen are an exception. Export important documents as Markdown files and keep them somewhere else.

Example: one page of meeting notes

In an empty document, type # Weekly meeting notes and press Enter, then ## Progress and Enter. Write two list items starting with -, then on an empty line choose / → Table, add a three-column table, and fill it in, moving between cells with Tab. Export it as Markdown (.md) from the File menu and you get a text file like this.

# Weekly meeting notes

## Progress

- Login screen design signed off
- Started work on faster search

## Schedule

| Item | Owner | Due |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Design review | Design team | Friday |

Shortcuts worth knowing

If the page feels cramped, use Width in the header. It cycles through normal, wide, and full width, which helps with big tables. The editor starts out following your operating system's light or dark setting, and each press of Theme switches between light and dark.

Working on more than one document

Open Documents in the header to see everything you have written, with the title, the time it was last edited, and the opening lines as a preview. You can create new documents and move between them freely.

Each one saves separately and keeps its own version history. To rename a document, click its file name in the header and confirm with Enter.