ink

A terminal markdown reader that actually looks good.

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ink renders markdown in your terminal with syntax highlighting, inline images, mermaid diagrams, themes, tabs, search, and a table of contents. One binary. No dependencies. Built in Rust.

Install

Quick install (macOS / Linux)

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/borghei/ink/main/install.sh | sh

Homebrew (macOS / Linux)

brew tap borghei/tap
brew install ink

Cargo

cargo install ink-md

Scoop (Windows)

scoop bucket add borghei https://github.com/borghei/scoop-bucket
scoop install ink

Pre-built binaries

Grab the latest binary for your platform from the releases page. Available for Linux (amd64, arm64), macOS (amd64, arm64), and Windows (amd64).

From source

git clone https://github.com/borghei/ink.git
cd ink
cargo build --release
# binary is at ./target/release/ink

Quick start

# Read a file
ink README.md

# Browse all markdown files in a directory
ink .

# Read from a URL
ink https://raw.githubusercontent.com/borghei/ink/main/README.md

# Pipe from stdin
cat notes.md | ink

# Plain output (no TUI, pipe-friendly)
ink --plain README.md

Features

Renders markdown the way it should look

Headings, bold, italic, strikethrough, links, blockquotes, lists, task lists, tables, footnotes, horizontal rules — all rendered with proper styling and colors.

Syntax-highlighted code blocks

Language-aware highlighting for every major language. Code blocks get clean borders with the language label shown at the top.

Inline images

Images in your markdown get rendered directly in the terminal using Unicode half-block characters. Works in any terminal with true color support. If an image can't load, ink shows a placeholder instead of crashing.

Mermaid diagrams

Flowcharts, sequence diagrams, pie charts, and Gantt charts rendered as ASCII art. No external tools needed.

GitHub-style admonitions

[!NOTE], [!TIP], [!IMPORTANT], [!WARNING], and [!CAUTION] blocks render with distinct colors and icons.

Wikilinks

[[page]] and [[page|display text]] syntax works out of the box. Great for browsing Obsidian vaults and personal wikis.

File browser

Run ink with no arguments or point it at a directory. You'll get an interactive file picker that lists every .md file, with filtering and keyboard navigation.

Multi-tab support

Open multiple files at once:

ink README.md CHANGELOG.md docs/guide.md

Switch between them with Tab and Shift+Tab.

Search

Press / to search within a document. Matches highlight inline. Jump between results with arrow keys.

Table of contents

Press t to toggle a sidebar showing every heading in the document. Tracks your position as you scroll.

8 built-in themes

Dark, Light, Dracula, Catppuccin, Nord, Tokyo Night, Gruvbox, and Solarized. Press T to open the theme picker and preview each one live.

Auto-detects your terminal background and picks dark or light mode by default.

Presentation mode

Split any markdown file into slides on --- separators:

ink --slides deck.md

Watch mode

Auto-reload when the file changes on disk:

ink --watch draft.md

Document stats and outline

# Heading structure
ink outline README.md

# Word count, reading time, element counts
ink stats README.md

# Diff two markdown files
ink diff old.md new.md

Keybindings

Key	Action
j / k / ↑ / ↓	Scroll up/down
Space / Page Down	Page down
Page Up	Page up
G / End	Jump to end
Home	Jump to start
Ctrl+f / Ctrl+b	Page down / up
Ctrl+d / Ctrl+u	Half-page down / up
n / N	Next / previous heading
/	Search
t	Toggle table of contents
T	Theme picker
Enter	Follow link
[ / ]	Navigation back / forward
Tab / Shift+Tab	Next / previous tab
q	Quit

Configuration

Create ~/.config/ink/config.toml:

# Default theme (dark, light, dracula, catppuccin, nord, tokyo-night, gruvbox, solarized)
theme = "catppuccin"

# Max rendering width in columns
width = 90

# Line spacing: compact, normal, relaxed
spacing = "normal"

# Show table of contents on startup
toc = false

# Show YAML/TOML frontmatter
frontmatter = false

Custom themes

Drop a .toml file in ~/.config/ink/themes/ and use it by name:

ink --theme mytheme README.md

Every color is customizable — headings, code, links, blockquotes, admonitions, status bar, and more. Check any built-in theme in src/theme/builtin.rs for the full list of color keys.

Shell integration

ink shell-setup bash   # or zsh, fish

Prints config snippets you can add to your shell profile — aliases, fzf preview, git pager setup.

CLI reference

ink [OPTIONS] [FILE|URL]...

Options:
  -t, --theme <THEME>    Color theme [default: auto]
  -w, --width <WIDTH>    Max width (columns, or: narrow, wide, full)
  -s, --slides           Presentation mode
  -p, --plain            Plain output (no TUI)
      --watch            Watch file for changes
      --toc              Show table of contents on startup
      --no-images        Disable image rendering
      --frontmatter      Show YAML/TOML frontmatter
      --spacing <MODE>   Line spacing: compact, normal, relaxed

Subcommands:
  outline      Show document heading structure
  stats        Show document statistics
  diff         Diff two markdown files
  shell-setup  Print shell integration snippets

How it compares

Feature	ink	glow	mdcat	frogmouth
Interactive TUI	Yes	Yes	No	Yes
Multi-tab	Yes	No	No	No
In-document search	Yes	No	No	No
Table of contents	Yes	No	No	Yes
Inline images	Yes	No	Yes	No
Mermaid diagrams	Yes	No	No	No
Admonitions	Yes	No	No	No
Wikilinks	Yes	No	No	No
File browser	Yes	Yes	No	Yes
Watch mode	Yes	No	No	No
Presentation mode	Yes	No	No	No
Themes	8	2	0	0
Single binary	Yes	Yes	Yes	No

Contributing

Contributions are welcome. Check out CONTRIBUTING.md for guidelines.

License

Free to use, modify, and distribute. Cannot be sold — not the original, not forks, not derivatives. See LICENSE for the full text.

Author

Made by borghei — who got tired of reading raw markdown like a caveman.