Marked 2 is a proprietary Mac application that helps you preview (not edit) Markdown files on your Mac. The obvious use for this application is as a “missing desktop Markdown renderer” of sorts — just drag and drop a Markdown file on the Marked 2 icon and you’ll see it rendered. One can imagine a teacher, for example, using this application to read and grade assignments that were submitted electronically as Markdown files. But there are numerous other uses for Marked 2.

Consider that while many newer editors like Atom and VS Code have Markdown preview functionality built in, many older editors don’t. Marked 2 is designed for people who use editors like Vim. You could arrange the Marked 2 window next to Vim for a live preview of what your rendered Markdown file will look like.

It’s clear the author of this utility has invested a lot of time and effort to get things right. It’s the attention to detail that makes this application worth the asking price. For instance, when you open Marked 2, a setup assistant guides you through configuring the rendering options to support your specific use case (Marked 2 actually contains two Markdown processors: MultiMarkdown and Discount). Highly recommended for Mac users that need a reliable way to preview or export Markdown files (check out the available styles).

The Marked 2 processor selection.

Marked 2 Markdown Support

Marked 2 provides support for the following Markdown elements.

Element Support Notes
Headings Yes
Paragraphs Yes
Line Breaks Yes MultiMarkdown doesn’t support trailing backslashes.
Bold Yes
Italic Yes
Blockquotes Yes
Ordered Lists Yes
Unordered Lists Partial MultiMarkdown doesn’t support nested unordered lists. Works with Discount.
Code Yes
Horizontal Rules Yes
Links Yes
Images Yes
Tables Yes
Fenced Code Blocks Yes
Syntax Highlighting No
Footnotes Yes
Heading IDs Partial Only works with MultiMarkdown.
Definition Lists Partial Discount doesn’t support this feature. Works with MultiMarkdown.
Strikethrough Partial MultiMarkdown doesn’t support this feature. Works with Discount.
Task Lists Yes
Emoji (copy and paste) Yes
Emoji (shortcodes) Yes
Highlight No
Subscript No
Superscript Yes
Automatic URL Linking Yes
Disabling Automatic URL Linking Partial Discount doesn’t support this feature.
HTML Yes

Support for Additional Syntax Elements

As an added bonus, Marked 2 provides support for several obscure elements when using MultiMarkdown.

Element Markdown Rendered Output
Abbreviation *[HTML]: Hyper Text Markup Language
The HTML specification is maintained by the W3C.
The HTML specification is maintained by the W3C.
Underline _word or phrase_ word or phrase