Markdown Reader — PilcrowMD

PilcrowMD

About this app

PilcrowMD is a beautiful, distraction-free Markdown reader and editor for Android. Open a .md file and read it the way it was meant to look - clean serif typography, a warm dark theme, and generous spacing that make long documents a pleasure to read on a phone.

Built for the Markdown people actually deal with every day: answers from AI assistants, README files, technical docs, notes, and specs. If you save output from AI chat tools as Markdown, PilcrowMD renders it perfectly - headings, lists, tables, code, and math - instead of showing you raw symbols.

WHY PILCROWMD

- Beautiful reading first - premium serif type, a low-contrast dark theme, and layout tuned for real reading, not a cramped IDE.
- Read AND edit - switch between a clean rendered preview and a real source editor with syntax highlighting, line numbers, and undo/redo.
- Never loses your work - saving writes back exactly what you wrote, with no silent reformatting and no half-written files. Your file is safe.
- Free, no ads, no account, no tracking - nothing to sign up for, nothing watching you. Fully open source (GPL-3.0).
- Fast and offline - native Android, no browser engine, opens large files smoothly and works with no connection. Only Mermaid diagram rendering uses the internet.

EVERYTHING MARKDOWN

- Full CommonMark + GitHub Flavored Markdown
- Tables, task lists, strikethrough, and links
- Syntax-highlighted code blocks
- LaTeX math ($$…$$)
- YAML front matter
- Wide tables and code scroll sideways without breaking the page

READER TOOLS

- In-document search with highlighted matches and next/previous
- Auto-generated table of contents from your headings
- Remembers your scroll position per file
- Open .md straight from your file manager, share sheet, or email attachment
- Adjustable text size and selectable reading fonts

PERFECT FOR

- Reading and saving answers from AI assistants and large language models
- README files and project documentation on the go
- Technical specs, notes, and meeting docs
- Anyone who works with .md / .markdown files

PilcrowMD opens .md, .markdown, and .txt files. No sign-up, no ads, no nonsense - just the cleanest way to read and edit Markdown on Android.

What’s new

Fixes to things that did not work the way they looked.

- Tapping a footnote now takes you to the footnote itself, instead of stopping about a screen short of it. The one you tapped is briefly highlighted so it is easy to find.
- Footnote numbers are small, so they are now easier to hit — the number itself is unchanged.
- Your recent files are visible as soon as you open the app, without scrolling down to find them.