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CalcChef

Markdown to PDF

Write, paste or open Markdown, preview it and download a Letter or A4 PDF with 0.5 in margins, or print the preview to a PDF with selectable text. How it works

Use the Markdown to PDF

Markdown Editor

95 words, 445 characters (limit 100,000)

PDF Preview

Welcome to Markdown to PDF

Replace this sample with your own text. The preview shows how each part will look on the page.

Lists

  • A bullet point
  • Another one, with bold and italic text
  1. A numbered step
  2. The next step

A table

Item Qty Price
Paper 2 4.50
Toner 1 38.00

Code

console.log("Hello, Markdown!");

A quote is set off with a bar on its left.

Download PDF makes a picture of the preview: each page is an image, so its text cannot be selected, searched or copied. Print to PDF opens your browser's print dialog for the preview alone; choose "Save as PDF" there to get a file whose text can be selected and searched (the browser decides the fonts and line breaks, so the pages may differ slightly from the picture PDF). Your text is saved in this browser. A link with ?markdown=... shows its own text without replacing your saved document. Images from other sites are requested by the preview and reach the PDF only if their host allows it.

About the Markdown to PDF

Markdown to PDF renders GitHub Flavored Markdown (headings, lists, tables, code blocks, task lists), shows the preview and saves it as a Letter or A4 PDF with 0.5 in margins, up to 10 Letter or 9 A4 pages. Each page is drawn as a JPEG image. The longer the document, the lower the drawing resolution, 192, 168 or 144 dpi, and the line under the buttons gives the page count and resolution for your text. For a PDF whose text can be selected and searched, press Print to PDF and save from the browser’s print dialog.

Drawing resolution for a document that fills whole pages

Full pages of textLetterA4
1192 dpi192 dpi
2192 dpi192 dpi
3192 dpi192 dpi
4192 dpi192 dpi
5192 dpi192 dpi
6168 dpi168 dpi
7168 dpi168 dpi
8144 dpi144 dpi
9144 dpi144 dpi
10144 dpiRefused
11RefusedRefused

The resolution follows the exact laid-out length, not the page count. On Letter, text up to about 5.8 pages long is drawn at 192 dpi, up to about 7.6 pages at 168 dpi and up to 10 pages at 144 dpi; on A4 the steps are about 5.6, about 7.3 and 9 pages. So a 6-page Letter PDF whose last page is mostly empty can still be at 192 dpi. The length is measured on a copy laid out at the page width (Letter 720 x 960 CSS px of text area, A4 697 x 1026), including the space added to keep blocks whole, and the whole document is one canvas of under 16 million pixels.

Frequently asked questions

Can I select or search the text in the PDF?
Not in the downloaded PDF: each page is a picture of the preview, so its text cannot be selected, searched, copied or read by a screen reader. Press Print to PDF instead and choose Save as PDF in the browser’s print dialog. The browser then prints the preview sheet alone, as real text, at the page size you picked with 0.5 in margins; how it breaks pages is up to the browser.
How long can the Markdown document be?
100,000 characters of Markdown, and 10 Letter pages or 9 A4 pages once laid out. A longer document is refused with a message that gives its length in pages and the limit; shorten it or split it in two.
Do images in my Markdown appear in the PDF?
Images with an http or https address are loaded from the site that hosts them, which sees your IP address, and reach the PDF only if that site allows other pages to draw them. data: addresses are not accepted.
Why was my table or code block cut across two pages?
Blocks that fit on one page (paragraphs, list items, code blocks, quotes, table rows, images, rules and headings) move whole to the next page, so a table is split between rows. A block taller than a page has to be cut, and a heading can still be left alone at the bottom of a page.
Does HTML inside the Markdown work?
Mostly not. HTML tags are shown as text and the page counts them; a short list of tags without attributes passes through, such as kbd, sub, sup, mark and details. Links keep only http, https, mailto and tel addresses or a relative one.
Is my text saved?
Yes, in this browser, until you press Clear Saved Values. A link with ?markdown= shows its own text without replacing your saved document, and Save this text keeps it. Open file, or a .md, .markdown or text file dropped on the editor, replaces the text in the tab; a file over 100,000 characters is refused and your text stays.

Network use

The preview loads any remote images or other media your Markdown refers to, so the server hosting them sees your IP address. Privacy policy

From notes to a printable page

Meeting minutes, a README or a one-page report written in Markdown come out as a clean sheet to print or attach: headings, bullet and numbered lists, tables with aligned columns, task-list checkboxes, quotes and fenced code blocks all render as they do on GitHub. Type or paste into the editor, or press Open file (or drop a .md, .markdown or text file on the editor; it is read in the tab), check the preview, choose Letter or A4 and press Download PDF; the file is markdown-document.pdf. Your text is saved in this browser until you press Clear Saved Values.

Because the PDF is built from a picture of the preview, it suits documents meant to be read or printed, not ones someone will search or copy from. For a PDF with real text, press Print to PDF and pick Save as PDF as the printer in your browser's print dialog: the browser prints the preview sheet alone, at the chosen page size with 0.5 in margins. The PDF is built in your browser, but images your Markdown links to are requested from the sites that host them.

How the PDF is made

The Markdown is converted to HTML (GitHub Flavored Markdown; a single line break starts a new line), laid out at the width of the page's text area and drawn onto one canvas with html2canvas. html2pdf.js cuts that canvas into page-high slices and places each slice on a page as a JPEG at quality 0.95, with 0.5 in margins.

text area = page − 2 × 0.5 in, at 96 CSS pixels per inch: Letter 720 x 960 px, A4 697 x 1026 px

The canvas is kept under 16 million pixels, so the drawing resolution falls in steps as the laid-out text grows: on Letter, 192 dpi up to about 5.8 pages of text, 168 dpi up to about 7.6 and 144 dpi up to 10 pages; on A4, about 5.6, about 7.3 and 9 pages. Example: a Letter document that is 5.5 pages long prints on 6 pages at 192 dpi. A longer document is refused with a message naming the limit.

Paragraphs, list items, code blocks, quotes, table rows, images, rules and headings that fit on one page move whole to the next page instead of being cut; a block taller than a page, or a heading left alone at the bottom of a page, can still be cut. Raw HTML in the text is shown as text, except a short list of tags without attributes such as kbd, sub, sup and details. The text limit is 100,000 characters.

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