A MarkEdit alternative that shows the finished document
MarkEdit is a good, free, open-source Markdown source editor. Glance answers a different question: what the file looks like when it is finished. It renders in Finder on Space, draws math and diagrams natively, exports a PDF, and lets you type straight into the rendered page.
Glance vs MarkEdit
GlanceSource on one side, document on the other
MarkEdit describes itself as TextEdit for Markdown, and that is an accurate description of a good tool. Out of the box you see ## Heading, the hashes and all, coloured by a syntax theme, with tables, LaTeX, and Mermaid in popovers you summon over the source. Its official MarkEdit-preview extension, installed from inside the app, adds a rendered preview and a mode that hides the syntax.
Glance starts from the document that syntax produces, with nothing to add. The heading is a heading, the table has columns, the Mermaid block is a diagram, and the equation is typeset. Then you click any of it and type.
The source is still a keystroke away
Wanting to see the raw text is normal, and Glance stopped making you choose. Press ⌘\ and the Markdown opens in a pane beside the rendered page. The two scroll together, block by block, so a Mermaid diagram three lines long and four hundred points tall still lines up with its source. Your cursor and selection appear in both panes, and you can type in either one.
The pane stays closed until you ask for it. Glance opens as a reader, and a second column halves the width of the thing you came to read.
See the document, not the syntax
Free to read, Pro to edit · v0.2.2 · 9.8 MB · macOS 14+
Printing and PDF
MarkEdit's manual is direct about this: it does not export to other formats, PDF included, and it suggests Pandoc from the command line instead. That is a defensible scope decision for an editor, and it leaves a gap the moment you need to hand a spec to somebody.
Glance prints with ⌘P and exports a PDF with ⇧⌘E, both through the same path, so the saved file matches what the printer produces. Pages break between lines and between table rows rather than through them, and a heading never sits alone at the foot of a page.
Where MarkEdit is the better pick
It is free and MIT licensed, and it runs single-digit open issues against five thousand stars. It is also smaller than Glance: 3.2 MB to download against 9.8 MB, both tiny next to the Electron editors. For writing a long document in raw Markdown, with full control of the text and no rendering in the way, it costs nothing and gets out of your way. Glance is closed source and charges for editing.
The two do not conflict. Write in MarkEdit, read and correct in Glance.
Related
For the Quick Look background, see Markdown Quick Look for macOS and the Finder preview guide. Comparing other options? See QLMarkdown, Marked, MacDown, Typora, and MarkText, or the roundup of Mac Markdown apps.
FAQ
MarkEdit is a source editor, in its own words a TextEdit for Markdown. You type the syntax and you see the syntax, highlighted; official extensions can add a rendered preview. Glance shows the finished document: headings in real type, tables as tables, Mermaid diagrams and LaTeX drawn as graphics. You click that page and type into it.
Yes, since version 0.2.1. Command-backslash opens the source beside the rendered page. The two panes scroll together, your cursor and selection show up in both, and typing in either one updates the other. It is off by default, because Glance opens as a reader.
Its bundled Quick Look extension shows syntax-highlighted source rather than a rendered document. A rendered preview comes from the free MarkEdit-preview extension, installed from MarkEdit's Extensions manager. Glance renders in Quick Look with nothing extra to install.
Not with an export command, and that is deliberate. Its manual says it does not support exporting to formats such as PDF or Word, and points you to Pandoc in Terminal instead. A maintainer closed a pull request adding native PDF export in June 2026 on the grounds that a plain-text editor knows nothing about the HTML. Glance prints with Command-P and exports a PDF with Shift-Command-E.
Reading is free forever. MarkEdit is free and MIT licensed throughout, which is a real advantage if you want open source. Editing in Glance is Pro, free for 14 days and then $9.99 once for up to three Macs.
Many people will. MarkEdit is a fine place to write a long document in raw Markdown. Glance is for the other half of the job: reading files scattered across your Mac, checking a README from Finder, and fixing a line without hunting for it in an editor.
Ready to glance?
Free to read, Pro to edit · v0.2.2 · 9.8 MB · macOS 14+
Notes
- Compared 13 October 2026 against MarkEdit 1.36.0, released 23 September 2026. MarkEdit is free and MIT licensed. ↩
- Reading Glance is free with no account and no time limit. Editing is Glance Pro: free for 14 days, then a $9.99 one-time license covering up to three Macs. There is no subscription. ↩
- MarkEdit's bundled Quick Look extension provides syntax highlighting for Markdown source. A rendered Quick Look preview comes from the free MarkEdit-preview extension, which since MarkEdit 1.34 installs from the app's built-in Extensions manager. ↩
- MarkEdit's manual states that it does not support exporting to formats such as PDF or Word, and points to Pandoc instead. A maintainer closed a pull request adding native PDF export in June 2026, on the grounds that a plain-text editor knows nothing about the rendered HTML. ↩
- MarkEdit dropped support for macOS 14 Sonoma in version 1.27 and needs macOS 15 or later. Glance needs macOS 14 or later. ↩