Markdown (.md) viewers (Microsoft and others)

Viewer/VFS Plugins
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There are at least two Markdown preview handlers that we know of, and both work in Directory Opus.

Microsoft have released a Markdown (.md file) preview handler which works in both File Explorer and Directory Opus.

Markdown_Preview_Handler
Markdown_Preview_Handler1442×680 66.8 KB

Markdown is a bit like a simplified version of HTML, and used a lot for things like ReadMe files on Github. (It's also supported by the forum here, although you'd be unlikely to save forum posts into .md files.)

This viewer is part of Microsoft's PowerToys for Windows 10, which you can download from https://github.com/microsoft/PowerToys/releases.

Once PowerToys is installed, the viewer is enabled by default and should just work.

One issue I noticed is that clicking the viewer itself will not bring the window to the front; you have to click elsewhere. This also affects the viewer in File Explorer.

As this is a third party viewer, if you find problems or want to request features, you should do so at https://github.com/microsoft/PowerToys/issues.

:warning: Beware - PDF viewing: :warning:

PowerToys also installs a PDF viewer which is terrible.

(It will only display 10 pages, renders everything at a very low resolution where text is barely readable, and does not render properly when you scroll some documentes.)

If you install PowerToys for its other functionality, we recommend disabling the PDF viewer part of it. You can do so from PowerToys itself, or you can do it for just Opus (and also assign PDF back to some other viewer) via Preferences / Viewer / Plugins and configuring the ActiveX + Preview + Office + Web plugin, which acts as a proxy for preview handlers in general.

If you run into problems with Microsoft's Markdown preview handler, another option also exists:

That viewer also seems to work well in Directory Opus.

3 Likes
Markdown Preview
Custom Markdown Renderer
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Thanks a lot Leo!

Is there a quick way in DO viewer pane to toggle between the PowerToys .md preview handler and a normal .txt preview - like the Hex View button in the bottom of the viewer pane?

It would be very useful.

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If you right-click the viewer pane's titlebar (or its background, but only when it's the Text plugin or another native plugin, not a preview handler), the menu there has a Use Plugin sub-menu that can be used to switch to the Text plugin, or back to Default (to reset to the "natural" plugin for the file).

I don't think there's a command to do the same thing, so that's probably the only way, at least at the moment.

You can use Show PLUGIN=text.dll to show a file with a particular plugin, but it opens the standalone viewer rather than using the preview pane, which probably isn't what you want here.

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Faster switch between Default (Markdown in this case).and Text plugin would be great in a future DO release - like the Hex View but it's ok for now. :slight_smile:

Thanks a lot for the info!

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Thanks for the info, Leo.
Is it possible though to get rid of this warning?

Clipboard Image

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That warning comes from Microsoft's viewer. We have no control over it. Whether the viewer has a setting, I don't know, but probably not, although it could probably be modified since they have published the source code.

Asking the authors of the viewer via the GitHub page is your best bet. They know more about it than us.

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Thank you.

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It's an open issue, you can remind them.

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Thanks for bringing this to my attention Leo!
Sadly with no linked media displaying, this is just teasing on microsofts part once again.

You mention in your OP:

There are at least two Markdown preview handlers that we know of, and both work in Directory Opus.

What is the other plug in called ?

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It's linked at the bottom of the first post.

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Oh sorry, I overlooked that.
I actaully spent the afternoon yesterday trying to get that to work one to work. The devoloper does not seem sure of it and links to Microsofts version as an alternative.

You confirming that it does infact work with Directory Opus is good news. I will try some more to get it to work then and maybe ask the devoloper for some help.
Thanks!

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What I finally did is just use Ghostwriter as a light Markdown reader/viewer. The power-toys extension for Opus is nice. However, it's more or less useless for most markdowns readme’s since it can’t show embed images and other things (very likely for security reasons, which is fine). But in my case it even blocks local files or direct embed images, basically the MD is text only and no way to show them properly. I use Obsidian for notes, so I don’t need another MD editor either. Sadly, Obsidian can’t be set as a .md handler either (not that I would want this anyway).

I think you are better off handling markdown files externally with a light viewer. If someone has a more simple app or suggestion, please do just to open .MD files as fast and lightly as possible and render them. Sure, you can use a browser extension as well, but it means it now needs access to local files in terms of permissions…ouch, no.

1 Like
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Hi everyone,

If you prefer a lightweight Markdown previewer over the full PowerToys package, take a look at my updated fork of Atrejoe/MarkdownPreview.

What's new:

Dark mode support (follows Windows theme)
Segoe UI as the default font
Adjustable font size via the Registry

Changing the font size:
Create a DWORD value under:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\MarkdownPreview\FontSize
Set the base to Decimal and enter your preferred size (e.g. 16).
MarkdownPreview.zip (692.1 KB)

2 Likes
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Hi,
Thanks for the tool. I’ve installed the viewer using the .bat and it’s being recognized by the system (and DOpus) correctly. However, I ran into an issue when trying to adjust the font size.

The registry path HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\MarkdownPreview\ did not exist after installation. I tried to manually create the key and creating a Decimal value named FontSize under that, but unfortunately, it didn't have any effect.

Also, just a quick tip for sharing tools here: as Leo has mentioned before, it is always better to provide a link to the GitHub repository or the official project page instead of just uploading the .exe or compressed files directly.

This is not only much safer for users to verify, but it also makes it easier for everyone to find updates and official documentation in the future.

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You installed an executable from a person that registered 3 days ago? You are right to be suspicious.

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Thanks for the feedback, guys! :slight_smile:

Right, sorry about not mentioning this: after changing the value, you need to kill prevhost.exe in Task Manager (or run taskkill /f /im prevhost.exe in the terminal).

Fair concern :slight_smile:
I made this with Claude Code (yes, vibe coding). If you feel uneasy, please don't install it.
I just don't have time to publish the source on GitHub. I did publish some apps (also made with Claude Code) here - DmitryN71 (Dmitry Novikov) · GitHub - this is just to show you I'm not a malware dev :slight_smile:

1 Like
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Hey all,

Saw a few threads recently about people having issues with markdown in DOpus, and I'd hit the same wall myself. The PowerToys handler kept throwing errors for me too. So I built my own viewer a while back to scratch the itch, and spent today tidying it up to make it a bit more accessible and compatible. Thought I'd share in case it's useful to anyone else here:

1 Like