Lede
Everything it does
Every line here is true of the shipping build and says how, not only that: “Command-B toggles” is a claim you can test in five seconds. Type in the box to find one.
22 features, press / to filter
Writing
The markers hide by what the line says, not by where your cursor is, so nothing reflows as you move through the text. Everything else is there to keep it that way.
The syntax disappears
A heading reads as a heading and bold reads as bold, while the file underneath stays exactly what you typed. Lede hides the markers by what the line says, not by where the cursor is, so the text never moves under you.
Bold and italic that toggle
Select a word, press Command-B, and it is bold. Press it again and it is not. The same for italic with Command-I, and both know that one asterisk is a prefix of two, so italic on a bold word adds italic rather than taking the bold away.
One Command-Z per change.
A slash menu that teaches itself out of a job
Type / and pick a heading, a list, a table, a callout. It shows you the Markdown it is about to write, so after a few uses you type the syntax yourself and stop opening it.
Tables that behave like a spreadsheet
Inside a table, Tab moves to the next cell, Shift-Tab goes back and Return adds a row. Outside a table those keys do exactly what they always did. Format Table lines the pipes up; rows and columns come and go from the Format menu.
Pictures, pasted or dropped
Paste a screenshot or drop a file onto the page and it is filed beside the document, in a folder named after it, with a relative link written into the text. Nothing is ever overwritten and nothing is ever deleted.
notes.md gets notes.assets/. Move them together and every link still works.
Focus and typewriter modes
Focus dims everything but the paragraph you are in, in the page's own quiet grey rather than a system colour that washes out on cream. Typewriter keeps the line you are writing in the middle of the window. Both off by default, both in the View menu.
A formatting bar, if you want one
Twelve buttons along the bottom for the marks and blocks, off by default because the empty page is the app. It lights the block your cursor is in and it fades with the rest of the chrome while you type.
Find, and rename in place
Command-F opens a find bar over the page and closes with the same keystroke. Click the file name in the title bar to rename the file, which is one field and one commit rather than a dialog.
Nothing in the way
The chrome fades while you type and comes back when you reach for the mouse. It keeps its space while it fades, so not one line of your text moves.
Reading, and getting it out
Read is a different view, not Write with the caret taken away, and what it renders is what leaves the app.
Read renders the document
Tables are tables with ruled rows, callouts are tinted panels, code keeps its colours, a completed task is struck through, and links are links: a pointing hand, and a click that opens them.
Maths
LaTeX between dollar signs is drawn in Read mode and in both exports: inline in the line, display on its own. Write and Source show the source you typed. A price is still a price, so $50 to $100 is left alone.
Rendered natively. No web view, no script, and it prints.
Export to PDF and HTML
The PDF is drawn with the system's own text engine, with page numbers and no heading left alone at the foot of a page. The HTML is one file in the colours of the page you wrote on, with every picture and equation embedded, so it can be sent anywhere and fetches nothing.
Command-P prints the rendered document, not the editor. What comes out of the printer is the PDF export.
Source shows the file exactly as it is
Monospaced, uncoloured, with line numbers in the margin. The same measure runs through all three views, so switching between them never moves a line.
Markdown, properly
647 of 650 CommonMark examples and 666 of 672 GitHub Flavored Markdown examples, measured against the specifications' own test suites. Tables, footnotes, task lists, nested lists, code fences with highlighting.
The page
The one thing you cannot get from the other free editors is a considered page. The rest of the settings fit in one pane.
Four page colours
Paper, White, Grey and Black, chosen from the status bar and applied to the whole window rather than to a panel inside it. Each carries its own ink and its own accent, measured against that page rather than borrowed from the one next to it.
Six faces, and a reading face of its own
Sans, Serif, Mono, Charter, Iowan and Avenir, every one already on your Mac and every one with a real bold and italic. Choose one to write in and one to read in. The line length is set in characters, so the count holds whichever face you pick.
Not a font picker, on purpose. A face with no italic draws emphasis as nothing.
Type size and line length
Seven type sizes, and a line length in characters rather than pixels, so a bigger size widens the measure instead of squeezing the words. Both sit behind the chip in the status bar with the page colours, because they are the things you change while writing.
Settings, one pane
Command-comma. The system appearance, the two faces, the chrome, the line numbers and what an empty launch does: seven rows, no tabs. Everything you set once and leave.
It gives your file back unchanged
Open and save, twice over, and the bytes are identical. Smart quotes and dashes are off and cannot be turned on, because rewriting your punctuation as you type is not a feature. All of it is held in place by a test suite rather than by good intentions.
Native, and small
Written in AppKit for the Mac. No Electron, no browser engine hidden inside, no JavaScript runtime. The whole download is 6.7 MB, universal, and it opens immediately.
It tells you when there is a new one
Once a day at most, Lede asks this site whether there is a newer version and says so if there is. That is the only connection it ever makes, and it carries nothing about you.
What it is not, and what to use instead
Nothing on this list is held back to sell you something. Each is a different app, and two of them are ours.
A vault, links between notes, or search across a folder
That is Skein, which is also free and shares this editor. Lede is one file in one window on purpose: no sidebar, no folder tree, no backlinks.
Sync, or an iPhone app
A file on your Mac is where it stays. Skein has an iPhone app and works over a folder; Lede never will, because a one-file editor with a sync engine is a different app.
A document with page layout, or a Word file at the end
That is Verso. Lede exports a PDF of the rendered page and a standalone HTML file; it does not do margins, running headers, or .docx.
Diagrams
Mermaid and its relatives need a browser engine to draw, and a browser engine is the one thing Lede does not carry. Verso renders Mermaid.
Vim keys, a plugin API, or any font on your Mac
Each of these is a permanent promise that would decide what the app can be for years. Lede offers six faces that all work rather than every face that might not.
If you want more than one file, you want Skein, which is free too and opens a folder of the same plain Markdown files with the same editor inside it. If you want a document to send somebody, with page layout and a Word file at the end, that is Verso.
Free · v1.0.2 · 6.7 MB · macOS 14 or later · Apple silicon and Intel
Signed and notarised by Apple. Made by the people who make Skein. One developer, who answers email.
Free, and funded by people who find it useful. If it earns its place, you can chip in towards the time it takes.