Markwon Documentation

Markwon is an Android markdown library that parses markdown following the [commonmark-spec] and renders it as native Android Spannables.

Key characteristics:

• No WebView required: It does not use HTML as an intermediate step, making it extremely fast.
• Native Rendering: Renders directly to Android-native Spannables.
• Wide Compatibility: Works with any widget that accepts Spanned content, including TextView, Button, Switch, CheckBox, and Toasts.
• Extensible: Supports features like syntax highlighting, tables, images, and LaTeX formulas via extensions.
• Editor Support: Since version 4.2.0, it includes an editor (markwon-editor) to highlight markdown input in real-time (e.g., in an EditText).

Markwon is a markdown library for Android that parses markdown following the CommonMark spec using the commonmark-java library. It renders the result as native Android Spannables without using HTML or a WebView as an intermediate step, making it extremely fast and lightweight.

Key capabilities:

• Displays markdown in any widget that accepts Spanned content (e.g., TextView, Button, Switch, CheckBox, Toasts).
• Supports standard markdown features including headers, emphasis, links, images, lists, code blocks, and tables.
• Includes an editor (since v4.2.0) to highlight markdown input in real-time (e.g., in an EditText).
• Highly extensible via plugins/extensions.

Markwon provides two view types for displaying Markdown in Android applications. Both implement the IMarkwonView interface and support layout previews in Android Studio.

• MarkwonView: Extends android.view.TextView.
• MarkwonViewCompat: Extends android.support.v7.widget.AppCompatTextView.

Warning: These views parse Markdown on the main thread. Use them only for relatively small portions of Markdown to avoid UI blocking.

The Tables Extension for Markwon allows you to render Markdown tables in Android applications. For detailed documentation, including installation and configuration, visit the official Markwon documentation site.

https://noties.io/Markwon/docs/v4/ext-tables/

To use Markwon in your Android project, you can include the stable artifacts via Maven Central. For the latest development features, you can use the SNAPSHOT version by adding the Sonatype snapshot repository to your root project's build.gradle file.

allprojects {
    repositories {
        jcenter()
        google()
        // Add this for SNAPSHOT versions
        maven { url 'https://oss.sonatype.org/content/repositories/snapshots/' }
    }
}

The sample app uses Robolectric (v3.8), which is incompatible with JDK versions greater than 1.8. If you are using an IDEA-bundled JDK, you must specify the JDK path explicitly when running tests from the command line.

Run tests using the following command:

./gradlew :app-s:testDe -Dorg.gradle.java.home="{INSERT BUNDLED JDK PATH HERE}"

To find your bundled JDK path in IntelliJ IDEA:

1. Open Project Structure...
2. Open SDK Location
3. Copy the path from the JDK Location field.

To use inline LaTeX, you must explicitly enable inlines in the JLatexMathPlugin and you must also include the MarkwonInlineParserPlugin in your Markwon builder.

final Markwon markwon = Markwon.builder(this)
        // required plugin to support inline parsing
        .usePlugin(MarkwonInlineParserPlugin.create())
        .usePlugin(JLatexMathPlugin.create(textView.getTextSize(), new JLatexMathPlugin.BuilderConfigure() {
            @Override
            public void configureBuilder(@NonNull JLatexMathPlugin.Builder builder) {
                // ENABLE inlines
                builder.inlinesEnabled(true);
            }
        }))
        .build();

To support SVG images within your markdown, you must use the SvgPlugin. This plugin relies on the androidsvg library. When building your Markwon instance, you must register both the ImagesPlugin and the SvgPlugin. The SvgPlugin requires a Resources object to correctly scale SVG media based on the device's display density.

final Markwon markwon = Markwon.builder(context)
        // it's required to register ImagesPlugin
        .usePlugin(ImagesPlugin.create(context))
        .usePlugin(SvgPlugin.create(context.getResources()))
        .build();

To allow table columns to stretch to the screen width or to enable horizontal scrolling when table content exceeds the screen width, wrap the TableLayout inside a HorizontalScrollView in your layout XML.

<HorizontalScrollView xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:clipChildren="false"
    android:clipToPadding="false"
    android:paddingLeft="16dip"
    android:paddingTop="8dip"
    android:paddingRight="16dip"
    android:paddingBottom="8dip"
    android:scrollbarStyle="outsideInset">

    <TableLayout
        android:id="@+id/table_layout"
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:stretchColumns="*" />

</HorizontalScrollView>

To ensure a new line is added whenever a softbreak is encountered in the markdown, register a visitor for the SoftLineBreak.class node that calls visitor.forceNewLine().

final Markwon markwon = Markwon.builder(context)
        .usePlugin(new AbstractMarkwonPlugin() {
            @Override
            public void configureVisitor(@NonNull MarkwonVisitor.Builder builder) {
                builder.on(SoftLineBreak.class, new MarkwonVisitor.NodeVisitor<SoftLineBreak>() {
                    @Override
                    public void visit(@NonNull MarkwonVisitor visitor, @NonNull SoftLineBreak softLineBreak) {
                        visitor.forceNewLine();
                    }
                });
            }
        })
        .build();

To start displaying markdown in your Android application, add the core markwon artifact to your module's build.gradle dependencies block. This is the base artifact required for basic functionality.

implementation "ru.noties:markwon:${markwonVersion}"