Write Markdown like a document, not like code.

A VS Code extension that opens .md files in a rich-text visual editor — think Notion or Typora, but living right inside VS Code. No external apps, no browser tabs. Press Alt+M to toggle back to raw Markdown at any time.

Editor demo

How it works

Open any .md file and it loads in the visual editor automatically. Everything you type is saved as valid Markdown. Switch to source view and back without losing anything.

Visual → file: edits are serialized to Markdown and saved via the normal VS Code document API (Ctrl+S works as expected).
File → visual: external changes (git pull, another editor) are reflected live.
No lock-in: your files stay as plain .md — the extension is purely a view layer.

Features

What	Detail
Rich-text editing	Bold, italic, strikethrough, inline code, headings H1–H3, bullet lists, numbered lists, blockquotes, code blocks, links, images
Slash commands	Type `/` to open the block-type menu (heading, list, code block, quote…)
Toolbar	One-click formatting bar above the editor
Toggle source	Button in the editor title bar or `Alt+M` to switch to/from raw Markdown
Side-by-side preview	Rendered Markdown preview next to the visual editor
Image drag & drop	Drag images into the editor or paste from clipboard (embedded as data URL)
Dark mode	Follows VS Code's active color theme automatically
Bidirectional sync	Live sync in both directions with loop-prevention

Getting started

Install the extension from the VS Code Marketplace.
Open any .md or .markdown file — it opens in the visual editor by default.
Start writing. Press Ctrl+S to save as usual.

To switch back to the plain text editor, click the </> Source button in the editor title bar or press Alt+M.

Switching the default editor

The extension sets itself as the default editor for *.md files. To change this:

Right-click a .md file → Open With… → choose Text Editor
Or add to your settings.json:

{
  "workbench.editorAssociations": {
    "*.md": "default"  // use the built-in text editor
    // "*.md": "markdownVisualEditor.editor"  // use the visual editor
  }
}

Keyboard shortcuts

Shortcut	Action
`Alt+M`	Toggle between visual and source editor
`Ctrl+S`	Save (works normally in both modes)
`/`	Open slash command menu (block types)

Known limitations

Images dropped or pasted into the editor are embedded as base64 data URLs directly in the Markdown file. This keeps things portable but increases file size. Saving to disk with a relative path is planned.
Tables and task lists are not yet supported in the visual editor (the underlying TipTap extensions are available and will be added).