New in 0.11: the terminal theme macOS · Linux · Windows

Markdown, properly typeset in your terminal.

ink renders code, tables, images, diagrams and math in a fast reader with search, tabs and a table of contents. It pages like bat when you pipe it. One binary, no dependencies.

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/borghei/ink/main/install.sh | sh

brew tap borghei/tap && brew trust borghei/tap && brew install ink

cargo install ink-md

irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/borghei/ink/main/install.ps1 | iex

Scoop, conda, mise, .deb, .rpm and prebuilt binaries: every way to install.

1: binary, nothing else to install
9: themes, plus any you write
9: prebuilt targets, Raspberry Pi included
0: network calls unless you ask

Diagrams and math

Boxes, arrows and equations, drawn in text.

Mermaid flowcharts, state, class and ER diagrams come out as real boxes and routed arrows, sized to your window. Gantt charts get a time axis, mindmaps a tree.

LaTeX turns into Unicode you can read: \sqrt{b^2-4ac} is √(b² - 4ac). No browser, no plugins, no external tools.

A mermaid flowchart rendered by ink as boxes connected with arrows

Built for long documents

Find your place, keep your place.

A table of contents follows you as you scroll. Search highlights as you type. Every link on screen gets a letter, so you never reach for the mouse.

toShow the contents, then filter, fold and jump
/nSearch and step through matches
fOpen or follow any link by its letter
cYCopy a code block or a whole section as markdown
eEdit in $EDITOR at the section you're reading

ink with the table of contents sidebar open next to the document

Themes

Your colors, or nine of ours.

Press T and every theme previews live. The new terminal theme borrows your terminal's own palette, so the same setting fits light and dark setups.

Writing your own takes one TOML file. Colors can be hex, palette slots like ansi:blue, or default.

The ink theme picker listing the nine built-in themes over a rendered document

The terminal theme on a light terminal color scheme — --theme terminal, light scheme

The terminal theme on a dark terminal color scheme — same setting, dark scheme

Pager mode

ink --plain pages long files like bat and prints clean text into pipes, so it drops into fzf previews, git diffs and scripts.

Pull out just the lines you need with --line-range. Code blocks cut in half stay highlighted.

# preview markdown in fzf
$ fzf --preview 'ink --plain --color=always {}'

# readable markdown in git diffs
$ git config --global diff.markdown.textconv "ink --plain"

# just lines 40 to 80 of the source
$ ink --line-range 40:80 README.md

# read a README straight from the web
$ ink https://raw.githubusercontent.com/borghei/ink/main/README.md

And the rest

The details you'd expect, and some you wouldn't.

Inline images: Real pixels on Kitty, iTerm2, WezTerm, Ghostty and Sixel. Half-blocks everywhere else. SVG too.
Select and copy: Keyboard or mouse selection that knows where a code block ends. Works over SSH and tmux.
Admonitions: GitHub [!NOTE] blocks with icons, custom titles and Obsidian callouts.
Tabs and a file browser: Open several files at once, or run ink . and pick from a filterable list.
Watch mode: Re-renders within 100 ms of a save and keeps your scroll position.
Slides: ink --slides deck.md splits on ---. Arrow keys to move.
Frontmatter and wikilinks: YAML and TOML hidden or shown as a box. [[page]] links for Obsidian vaults.
Your keys: Vim-flavored by default, an emacs preset, and per-action overrides with chords.
Safe by default: Escape sequences are stripped and remote images stay off, so an untrusted file can't phone home.

jk scroll
Space page
/ search
t contents
f links
T themes
? every key
q quit

Compared

How ink stacks up.

Feature comparison of ink, glow, mdcat and frogmouth
Feature	ink	glow	mdcat	frogmouth
Interactive reader	Yes	Yes	No	Yes
Search in a document	Yes	No	No	No
Table of contents	Yes	No	No	Yes
Tabs	Yes	No	No	No
Inline images	Yes	No	Yes	No
Mermaid diagrams	Yes	No	No	No
Math and emoji	Yes	No	No	No
Watch mode	Yes	No	No	No
Presentation mode	Yes	No	No	No
Pager mode	Yes	Yes	No	No
Built-in themes	9	2	0	0
Single binary	Yes	Yes	Yes	No

Documentation

Read the manual.

Stop reading raw markdown like a caveman.