MarkFlow: A Lightweight Markdown Editor Built With Tauri

Why another markdown editor?

The world doesn’t need another markdown editor. But it might need a better one — one that starts fast, gets out of your way, and doesn’t ship a 200MB Electron binary just to render some text.

That’s why I built MarkFlow.

What is MarkFlow?

MarkFlow is a minimal, cross-platform markdown editor built with Tauri. It renders GitHub Flavored Markdown (GFM), supports dark and light themes, and exports to PDF and Word — all from a binary under 5MB.

It runs on Linux, macOS, and Windows. No Electron. No Chromium. Just a native webview and a Rust backend.

Features at a glance

GitHub Flavored Markdown — tables, task lists, code blocks, strikethrough
Dark & light mode — toggle with one click, respects system preference
PDF export — styled, A4-formatted, ready to print
Word export — proper .docx with headings, lists, and code blocks
Autosave — saves every 5 seconds to localStorage, recovers on restart
File associations — right-click any .md file → Open with MarkFlow
Keyboard-first — E to edit, Escape to preview, Ctrl+O to open

The tech stack

MarkFlow uses a deliberately simple stack:

Layer	Technology
Backend	Rust (Tauri 2)
Frontend	Vanilla JS, HTML, CSS
Markdown	marked.js (GFM)
PDF	html2pdf.js (jsPDF + html2canvas)
Word	docx.js
Build	Cargo + GitHub Actions

No React. No Vue. No build toolchain. Just files you can read in five minutes.

Why Tauri?

I evaluated three options:

Electron — battle-tested, but ships a full Chromium instance. Your “lightweight” editor ships at 150MB+.
Flutter — great for mobile, but web rendering adds complexity for a simple desktop app.
Tauri — uses the system’s native webview (WebKit on macOS, WebView2 on Windows, WebKitGTK on Linux). The binary is under 5MB. The Rust backend handles file I/O, window management, and system integration.

Tauri won because it matches the project’s philosophy: do the minimum, do it well, and ship small.

Building the release pipeline

Cross-platform builds aren’t free. Here’s how I set it up:

GitHub Actions triggers on every v* tag push. Three parallel jobs build for: - Linux — .deb package, portable .tar.gz, and an Arch PKGBUILD - macOS — .dmg installer (Apple Silicon) - Windows — NSIS .exe installer and .msi package

Each job runs on a fresh runner, installs Rust, and builds the Tauri release. Artifacts are uploaded automatically to a GitHub release.

The .deb package includes a .desktop file with MIME type registration, so MarkFlow shows up in your file manager’s “Open with” menu.

The autosave problem

Every editor needs autosave, but most implementations are either too aggressive (saving on every keystroke) or too fragile (writing to disk and failing silently).

MarkFlow’s approach: - Debounced saves — waits 5 seconds after the last edit before saving - localStorage only — no disk writes until you explicitly save - Session recovery — on restart, checks if saved content differs from the editor. If so, asks “Restore previous session?” - Visual feedback — status bar shows “Saved 14:32:07” when autosave fires

This means you never lose work, even if the app crashes or you accidentally close the window.

Design decisions

A few things that might surprise you:

No markdown preview toggle button in the toolbar — the keyboard shortcut (E / Escape) is faster and more reliable than a button click. The toolbar has buttons for file operations, not mode switching.

No file tree sidebar — MarkFlow opens one file at a time. If you need a file tree, use VS Code.

No plugin system — plugins add complexity. MarkFlow does markdown editing. That’s it.

CSS custom properties for theming — every color in the app is a CSS variable. Dark mode isn’t a separate stylesheet; it’s just different values for the same variables.

The logo

The MarkFlow logo combines a hashtag (# — the universal markdown symbol) with a flow arrow. It’s simple, recognizable at 16x16, and works in both dark and light themes. The teal/turquoise color palette gives it a distinctive identity without being loud.

Getting started

Linux:

sudo dpkg -i markflow_0.4.0_amd64.deb
markflow

macOS: Download the .dmg, drag MarkFlow to Applications.

Windows: Download the .exe installer, run it.

From source:

git clone https://github.com/TopHermDev/markdown-editor
cd markdown-editor/src-tauri
cargo tauri build

What’s next?

MarkFlow is intentionally minimal. Future considerations: - Table of contents navigation for long documents - Find and replace (Ctrl+F) - Custom CSS themes - Vim keybindings (maybe)

But for now, it does what it says on the tin: edit markdown, preview it, export it. Fast.

Download MarkFlow v0.4.0: GitHub Releases

Source code: github.com/TopHermDev/markdown-editor

License: MIT