← Handbook

The editor

View modes

markbird has two ways to show a document, and a shortcut to flip between them:

• Split — source and preview side by side, with synced scrolling. Drag the divider to resize; double-click it to snap back to 50/50. The divider is keyboard-operable, so this is not mouse-only.
• Switch — one pane at a time, toggling between source and rendered view. Your cursor and scroll position survive the switch.

⌘/Ctrl + ⇧ + V toggles the mode, ⌘/Ctrl + ⇧ + P switches the active pane.

Keyboard shortcuts

Press ? at any time for the full sheet. The essentials:

On Windows and Linux, read ⌘ as Ctrl.

The command palette

⌘/Ctrl + K opens a searchable list of everything markbird can do — creating and exporting documents, sharing, switching theme, toggling Vim mode. If you are looking for a feature and cannot find the button, look here first.

The slash menu

Typing / at the start of a line opens a snippet menu: tables, code blocks, task lists, callouts and more, inserted ready to fill in.

Tables

Insert a table with the table button in the formatting bar, Table: insert in the command palette, or /table. Inside a table, Tab moves to the next cell and ⇧ Tab to the previous one; each move pads the table into aligned columns, so the source stays readable. Tab in the last cell adds a row.

The palette has the rest, all starting with Table: — add a row below, add a column to the right, delete a row or column, align columns, and cycle a column's alignment through default, left, centre and right. The header row can't be deleted, because without it the rest is no longer a table.

Focus mode and typewriter scrolling

Focus mode hides everything except your text. Esc leaves it.

Typewriter scrolling keeps the line you are writing vertically centred instead of letting it drift to the bottom of the window. Both are in the command palette.

Vim mode

A full Vim keymap is available from the command palette (Toggle Vim mode) for anyone whose fingers expect it.

Your own CSS

Settings → Your own CSS takes snippets of CSS that restyle the app: a different heading font, a narrower column, colours of your own. Each snippet has a name and a switch, edits show up as you type, and everything is stored on this device.

Two things a snippet cannot do. It cannot fetch anything: @import and url() pointing at another server are removed before the CSS is applied, and markbird tells you what it dropped — a snippet copied from the internet cannot report back when you open your notes. And it cannot lock you out: if your CSS hides the way back, open the app with ?nocss=1 or run Turn off my CSS from the command palette, which switches every snippet off without deleting it.

Exports keep their own look on purpose. A document you send someone should read the same for them as for you; the light/dark theme and page setup for exports are separate settings.

Images

Paste or drag an image into the editor. It is stored locally alongside the document, shown in the preview, and inlined into exports — so an exported HTML file or DOCX carries its pictures with it rather than linking to something that might disappear.

Autosave and save state

Typing saves to your browser continuously. The indicator in the interface shows Saved locally, Saving… or Offline. Nothing is lost by closing the tab.

Beyond autosave, markbird keeps version history per document — automatic snapshots plus ones you take deliberately, each with a rendered preview and one-click restore. Find it in the command palette under Version history.