Displaying Markdown Files

I am currently creating all of my documentation in Markdown format and then converting to HTML with dillinger.io for viewing. I had a Visual Studio extension that could do this but every time I saved a page edit it would shift focus from Visual Studio to Chrome and that was very disconcerting. I disabled that extension.

I always seem to have a lot of typos and would like a method of viewing my Markdown files before converting them to HTML. If I find errors I have to edit them in Markdown and HTML which is painful. I did a search for Markdown viewers and found a Chrome extension named Markdown Reader. I have installed this and it works really well. All I do is drop my .md file onto a Chrome browser page and it displays in HTML.

The only setting I have to change to get it working is open the extension and turn Allow access to file URLs on.

I opened this diary page in the Markdown reader and was pleasantly surprised. On the right-hand side of the screen there was a table of contents that allowed me to select an item from the posts I have created. This is really handy as the number of items I have added is growing quickly.

It also updates the HTML page as I continue typing in my Markdown file which is another nice feature. I can switch between Visual Studio Code and the browser when I like rather than have the VS Code extension force me to view the page update every time the page is saved.

Added note: Markdown reader stopped working with a dreaded CORS error. I have switched over to Markdown Viewer and this has a nice interface but is missing the table of contents.