Is there a command line utility for rendering GitHub flavored Markdown?

Question

I'm wondering if there is a command line utility for taking a GitHub flavored Markdown file and rendering it to HTML.

I'm using a GitHub wiki to create website content. I've cloned the repository on my server and would then like to process it into regular HTML. It's important to me that what appears on GitHub is exactly how it should look for my website. I'd also really like to use the fenced blocks with ~~~, so I'd rather not use standard Markdown syntax only.

I've looked a bit into the JavaScript live preview thinking I could hook it into Node.js, but they say it is deprecated. I've looked at the redcarpet repository, but it doesn't look like it has a command line interface.

I rolled my own solution, however, since no solution here is clearly better than the others, I'll leave the question without a selected answer.

Solution 1

I wrote a small CLI in Python and added GFM support. It's called Grip (Github Readme Instant Preview).

Install it with:

$ pip install grip

And to use it, simply:

$ grip

Then visit localhost:5000 to view the readme.md file at that location.

You can also specify your own file:

$ grip CHANGES.md

And change port:

$ grip 8080

And of course, specifically render GitHub-Flavored Markdown, optionally with repository context:

$ grip --gfm --context=username/repo issue.md

Notable features:

• Renders pages to appear exactly like on GitHub
• Fenced blocks
• Python API
• Navigate between linked files (thanks, vladwing!) added in 2.0
• Export to a single file (thanks, iliggio!) added in 2.0
• New: Read from stdin and export to stdout added in 3.0

Hope this helps someone here. Check it out.

Solution 2

I've not found a quick and easy method for GitHub-flavoured Markdown, but I have found a slightly more generic version - Pandoc. It converts from/to a number of formats, including Markdown, Rest, HTML and others.

I've also developed a Makefile to convert all .md files to .html (in large part to the example at Writing, Markdown and Pandoc):

# 'Makefile'
MARKDOWN = pandoc --from gfm --to html --standalone
all: $(patsubst %.md,%.html,$(wildcard *.md)) Makefile

clean:
    rm -f $(patsubst %.md,%.html,$(wildcard *.md))
    rm -f *.bak *~

%.html: %.md
    $(MARKDOWN) $< --output $@

Solution 3

pip3 install --user markdown
python3 -m markdown readme.md > readme.html

It doesn't handle GitHub extensions, but it is better than nothing. I believe you can extend the module to handle the GitHub additions.

Solution 4

Maybe this might help:

gem install github-markdown

No documentation exists, but I got it from the gollum documentation. Looking at rubydoc.info, it looks like you can use:

require 'github/markdown'  
puts GitHub::Markdown.render_gfm('your markdown string')

in your Ruby code. You can wrap that easily in a script to turn it into a command line utility:

#!/usr/bin/env ruby

# render.rb
require 'github/markdown'

puts GitHub::Markdown.render_gfm File.read(ARGV[0])

Execute it with ./render.rb path/to/my/markdown/file.md. Note that this is not safe for use in production without sanitization.

Solution 5

To read a README.md file in the terminal I use:

pandoc README.md | lynx -stdin

Pandoc outputs it in HTML format, which Lynx renders in your terminal.

It works great: It fills my terminal, shortcuts are shown below, I can scroll through, and the links work! There is only one font size though, but the colors + indentation + alignment make up for that.

Installation:

• apt: sudo apt-get install pandoc lynx
• nix: nix-shell -p pandoc lynx

View more solutions

Comments

[Lazy Badger]

Haven't ideas - I don't write Ruby and I didn't read Redcarpet sources

[RichVel]

Works really well and you can't beat ease of install for Pythonistas!

[Bluu]

This should be a first hit for "github markdown preview." Everything else is complicated, doesn't work, or doesn't do all the GitHub features. grip works right out of the box.

[ProfHase85]

Thanks for the hint, a real great package. Is there a reason why there is no HTML (css-inclusive) export?

[bguiz]

I've noticed that this doesn't support features like syntax highlighting for code blocks and newer features like checklists. But hey it gets most of the way!

[Houdini]

Does this work with Python3.x? Because I tried installing, and it seems like it may have a dependency on flask, which does not appear to be supported with Python3.x. See github.com/mitsuhiko/flask/issues/339

[Joe]

@Houdini That issue is out of date. Flask does support 3.3, see flask.pocoo.org/docs/python3. Here's a more recent Github thread on the topic github.com/mitsuhiko/flask/issues/587. If there's another dependency that needs updated, feel free to open an issue or a pull request.

[Brad Parks]

i've been using "watch pandoc ..." to continuously convert a markdown file to html, and the chrome "live reload" extension to get real time "stay where i'm scrolled too" functionality with this, and it works great. chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/livereload/…

[Gabriel Llamas]

I know, the module has not been udated in 9 months, why do you downvote an old post?

[Keith Bennett]

I tried this with fenced blocks for Ruby and Cucumber. While the fences (ruby, cucumber, etc.) appear to be recognized as fences (because they're rendered in fixed width text), there is no syntax highlighting. Any idea why?

[Kazimieras Aliulis]

/usr/bin/python: markdown is a package and cannot be directly executed

[Greg]

tmpvar doesn't seem to do GFM version enhancements like tables

[Xandaros]

Very nice, the only thing I'm missing is some borders for the tables. Well, at least I can render them at all, this is pretty much exactly what I need. Pipe in the GFM, pipe out HTML :)

[Cora Middleton]

The question is specifically about command-line usage. Before writing your own ruby script (or egad node server), give this a shot.

[Barry Staes]

Exactly this works inside your terminal. Or if your favorite (desktop?) browser can access that folder use pandoc readme.md -o readme.md.html and open the resulting file.

[Cora Middleton]

@baerry-staes Yes, sorry, I hope it was clear that yours was my favored answer.

[Barry Staes]

@JustinMiddleton yes i got that, thank you. My comment was just to add some extra info for desktop users.. i figured someone someday reading this might find it useful.

[prashant]

Pandoc reads GFM fine but it doesn't generate the same HTML GitHub does -- for instance, if you have a multi-line <pre/> tag in your GFM source, Pandoc will put <br/> tags in for the line breaks in it, while GitHub's renderer, though it strips leading whitespace, seems to otherwise leave the content alone.

[leo]

It should be noted that this package requires an active internet connection and your github authentication credentials (provided at command line) if you do more than 60 refreshes per hour.

[Joe]

@leo You can use a personal auth token instead of your credentials. That's actually recommended instead of exposing your password. github.com/joeyespo/grip#access

[Halil Kaskavalci]

Simple HTML output with no fancy tags.

[VIGNESH]

jq --slurp --raw-input '{"text": "\(.)", "mode": "markdown"}' < README.md | curl --data @- https://api.github.com/markdown > README.html

[jedd.ahyoung]

Well done, man. Saves me from having to resort to Ruby or Python when I'm writing a node application, which is great.

[plesatejvlk]

Thanks Jim, due to virtually non-existent examples, I was stuck at the require step (replacing dash with slash made it).. ;)

[Gourneau]

This is great for creating local mirrors of Github wikis. First clone your wiki by running this command like this (replace .git with .wiki) git clone https://github.com/user/project.wiki. Then you can host it locally with grip for a killer combo :)

[spren9er]

In Atom you can install a package called gfm-pdf (atom.io/packages/gfm-pdf), which exports your markdown document to a HTML and/or PDF document. The library wkhtmltopdf is required.

[Joe]

@Gourneau Thanks for sharing! Just added a 'Tips' section to the Readme with this github.com/joeyespo/grip#tips :-)

[Jez]

As mentioned earlier, I don't think this is a particularly great solution because all it does it goes off to Github and gets Github to render your Markdown. It requires a working internet connection with access to Github, and if Github dies then this tool stops working. I'd rather have a completely offline solution.

[yyny]

@VebjornLjosa * that * or grip... You chose. :P

[yobiscus]

For debian users, you can run grip via python -m grip [options], since there is no executable placed in the PATH directories.

[Pacerier]

@LazyBadger, Sundown is the actual parser (written in C). Redcarpet is not needed.

[kayleeFrye_onDeck]

This is great if you're already using NPM. I had to use it, on account of DOxygen causing me constant problems with specifically github-flavored markdown + exporting to HTML.

[kayleeFrye_onDeck]

You guys still supporting this? I tried to install with NPM today, but no dice. >downloading electron-v0.36.9-win32-x64.zip >Error: self signed certificate

[Yoshua Wuyts]

Yeah, we are! What version of npm / node did you run this on? - feel free to open up an issue on GH and we'll take a look at this. Thanks!

[AlanObject]

I got grip 4.2.0 from a pip install and it works as a server but the --export function doesn't work. It just hangs. Anyone else have this problem? Of course if you want an HTML file you can always save-as from the browser.

[Joe]

@AlanObject There's an issue that was recently opened that I think is related. (github.com/joeyespo/grip/issues/180) I'll take a look at it next week! Feel free to comment there or open a new issue anyway to make sure the specific issue you're seeing is addressed.

[Dominik George]

apt-get isntall pandoc will do, no need to use insecure, local stuff like brew.

[Federico Tomassetti]

@DominikGeorge there is a typo, it is install, not isntall

[richrad]

@DominikGeorge there's no apt-get on macOS.

[Stuart Rossiter]

Latest 4.3.2 for me (on Windows) only supports page links with an explicit .md suffix (rather than the normal syntax of just the page name). Am I missing something here?

[Stuart Rossiter]

Hmm this says the [link text](link URL) format I was using should always be the full URL (i.e. with the suffix). Yet GitHub allows it not to have the .md suffix and work.

[Stuart Rossiter]

...and including the suffix on GitHub gives me a link to the raw source of the page, not it rendered (i.e., I have to use the suffix-less links). Huh?

[Joe]

@StuartRossiter Want to open an issue? I'd be happy to look into it. It might be easier to drill down into the details there instead of in comments here github.com/joeyespo/grip/issues

[kidmose]

With pandoc 1.16.0.2 on linux mint 18 I get an error: pandoc: Unknown reader: gfm. Going to 2.2.1 fixes this.

[Asme Just]

I tested it with Pandoc 2.1.2.

[Holistic Developer]

How does one go about getting nice styling on the resulting HTML? My output is still rendered with Times New Roman, for example.

[memoselyk]

I think this is the "closest to source" answer from all of them since these tools are the ones used by github.

[Master of Ducks]

Pandoc install instructions are here. On macOS: brew install pandoc

[JESii]

Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to support GFM tables which is what I need.

[Alexander Mills]

how to install 2.2.1 on ubuntu?

[Asme Just]

@AlexanderMills Did you try sudo apt install pandoc ?

[Russ Brown]

I've tried about 5-6 other console md readers and this has by far been the best solution. I just added the most basic function to my config to make it a little quicker to use. function md { pandoc $@ | lynx -stdin }

[Alexander Oh]

nice tool! I was expecting something that would render it in the cli though.

[user5359531]

is this running locally or is it sending data out to GitHub API?

[user5359531]

neither the gfm nor the markdown_github input formats correctly render things like code blocks.

[user5359531]

it also does not correctly interpret the YAML or pandoc header metadata blocks

[Matthew]

I'm confused about this example, what is ^D?

[stevec]

This is arguably the best solution, but you don't give actual instructions on what to do. So after installing the gem gem install redcarpet, suppose we're in a directory containing README.md what next?

[Alexander Kucheryuk]

grip is amazing. But, unfortunately, due to its name it is not possible to find it easily if you forget how it is named. (not available via MacPorts either).

[Boris Verkhovskiy]

Strictly speaking, this is "John Gruber's Markdown", not GitHub flavored Markdown.

[Boris Verkhovskiy]

pandoc's output downloads a file from Cloudflare for IE 9 compatibility

[wisbucky]

@AlexanderOh You can output to file with grip file.md --export file.html

[wisbucky]

Pretty cool tool since it uses Github API, so it's an exact rendering. One inherent downside is that it adds a ton of css and header code.