Tinta is a fast, lightweight Markdown and Mermaid viewer for Windows, built with Direct2D and DirectWrite for hardware-accelerated rendering. A single native executable of under 5 MB that opens instantly — no Electron, no web engine, no installer.
Install
The recommended way is the Microsoft Store: the build is signed by the Store, trusted by Windows out of the box (no security prompts, works with Smart App Control), and updates automatically. The same signed build installs from the command line:
winget install "Tinta Markdown Viewer" -s msstore
Portable and other options
Prefer a single file? Grab the latest release: a portable tinta.exe, no installation required. Because a freshly released exe is not yet code-signed, Windows may show a SmartScreen prompt on first run ("More info", then "Run anyway") until the new version builds up download reputation.
Scoop users can install from the bucket:
scoop bucket add tinta https://github.com/oipoistar/scoop-bucket
scoop install tinta
Why Tinta?
Most markdown apps ship an entire browser to render text. Tinta uses the GPU-accelerated text stack already built into Windows:
| Tinta | Typora | Obsidian | VS Code |
|---|
| Startup | <100 ms | ~1.5 s | ~3 s | ~2 s |
| Install size | <5 MB | ~90 MB | ~250 MB | ~350 MB |
| Runtime | Native Direct2D | Electron | Electron | Electron |
It's a viewer first: perfect as the double-click default for .md and .mmd files, for reading documentation and diagrams — with an edit mode when you need it.
Features
- Lightning-fast startup - Direct2D rendering, no web engine overhead
- 10 beautiful themes - 5 light and 5 dark themes to choose from
- Hardware-accelerated - Smooth text rendering via DirectWrite
- Word wrap - Optional soft wrap in the editor (Ctrl+W)
- Native LaTeX math -
$inline$ and $$display$$ equations with matrices, cases, aligned equations, fractions, limits, accents and custom macros. Uses an installed math font; no bundled fonts or web engine. See the supported math syntax.
- Focused editing - Hide the preview pane while writing (Ctrl+E)
- Native Mermaid diagrams - 22 diagram families, from flowcharts with subgraphs through sequence, class, state, ER, gantt, and pie to C4, sankey, kanban, and radar - rendered without a web engine
- Export as HTML, DOCX, or PDF - Right-click and pick "Export as..." for a self-contained web page, a Word document that opens natively, or a vector PDF; diagrams and math come along in every format
- Pandoc export - With pandoc installed (or pointed at in settings), the editor offers EPUB, OpenDocument, PowerPoint, RTF and LaTeX too; rich formats convert from Tinta's own HTML export so diagrams and math survive as vector graphics
- Sheets - An infinite canvas of notes, made from the start page (S), where a Sheet tour shows the moves: cards are Markdown files in the sheet's folder, joined by arrows and gathered in groups, zoomed from titles down to the rendered note. Arrow keys walk between cards and Tab grows a mind map; links written in the notes show as ghost lines; a group can be a lane that writes
status: into the notes dropped in it; the sheet compiles into one document, presents along its arrows, tidies itself, and turns a pasted Mermaid flowchart into cards. A .smd is readable Markdown with a JSON Canvas block, and Obsidian .canvas files open too. See Sheets
- Start page - Bare launches land on a launcher with recent files, quick actions labeled with your actual key bindings, and built-in guides; closing the last tab returns there, and Ctrl+T opens it as a new tab
- Review annotations - Select text and press
A to attach a note, stored as an invisible HTML comment in the file itself. Annotated passages get a tint and a marker rail beside the scrollbar; hover previews, click edits, and a copy-for-agent button turns the whole review into a paste-ready task list for any coding agent - as the agent fixes items and deletes the comments, the marks vanish live
- File references - Plain-text paths like
docs/plan.md become real links: live targets open as tabs, missing ones render as faded ghosts. Mouse back/forward (or Alt+arrows) walks your jumps with exact scroll restore
- Link peek - Rest the pointer on a local
.md or wiki link and the target appears fully rendered in a panel beside it, no tab opened
- Follows the file - When another program changes the open file (an AI agent, a script, a second editor), the page shows the new text; an editor with nothing unsaved takes it too, the caret where it was and Ctrl+Z to take it back, and one with unsaved changes asks: Reload or Keep mine
- Image lightbox - Click any inline image to view it full size: wheel zooms, drag pans, Esc closes
- Other computers' shares stay closed - An image or file link on another computer's share (
\\server\share\...) opens only in a document from that same server; anywhere else the image shows a note instead, since opening the share would sign in to it with your Windows credentials. A share mapped to a drive letter opens like any local folder
- Copy tables as TSV - Hover a table for a copy button that pastes into Excel or Sheets as a real grid
- Copy diagrams as images - Hover a diagram for an Image button that puts a crisp 2x PNG on the clipboard
- Paste screenshots - Ctrl+V a bitmap in edit mode and it saves as a PNG beside the document with the link inserted
- Pin on top - A pushpin in the title bar keeps the window above every other app, and Tinta remembers it for the next window
- Rich tables - Tables with bold, italic, code, and clickable links in cells
- Tabs - Win11 Notepad-style tabs in the title bar: files opened from Explorer join the window as tabs, Ctrl+Tab or the mouse wheel over the strip cycles, Ctrl+W or Ctrl+F4 closes (Ctrl+F4 also while editing, where Ctrl+W is word wrap), middle-click closes, Ctrl+T opens the file browser into a new tab, unsaved buffers show a dot, resting the pointer on a tab shows its full name, its folder and what its dot means, and dragging reorders tabs. Right-click a tab for close operations (close, close all but this, close all to the left/right), pin tab, plus copy path and reveal in Explorer. A pinned tab moves to the start of the row and shrinks to its name's first letter, stays when the others are closed, and comes back pinned with the session. Pulling a tab out of the strip floats it as a card: drop it on open space for a new window (which keeps the tab row), or onto another Tinta window to move it there — and dropping a single-file window onto a tab strip merges it back. Single-file windows stay tabless; turn the Explorer behavior off with the "Open files in tabs" setting
- Folder browser - Press B to browse and open Markdown or Mermaid files (Ctrl+click a file to open it in a new tab)
- Table of contents - Press Tab to see document headings, click to jump; the panel follows your reading position, and typing filters the headings
- Folding sections - In the reading view, the arrow beside a heading folds its section and opens it again, and right-clicking the page offers Fold all sections. Contents still lists every heading, fainter when folded, and jumping to one, following a link to it or searching for a word in a folded section opens the sections around it. Settings → Appearance → Fold sections turns the arrows off, or opens every document folded
- Unified editor - Press
: to edit: your raw Markdown on the left with the rendered page docked beside it. A slim line-number gutter, a soft accent wash on the caret's line and its rendered block, a tool rail with formatting controls (its bullet, numbered, task and quote buttons mark every selected line) plus table-size and diagram-template pickers, and Markdown assists (lists continue on Enter and on a paste of several lines, Tab indents, Ctrl+B/I wrap, and a quote, bracket or * ~ ^ = : typed over a selection wraps it). Alt+↑/↓ moves lines, selected text drags to another place (Ctrl+drag leaves a copy), and several carets (Alt+click, Ctrl+Alt+↑/↓, Ctrl+D) type, delete and move together, handy for lining up tables. A word and character count sits beside the Read button, for the whole document or the selection. Search and find-replace work in the editor too. The source is in colour: headings, links and code stand out, Markdown's marks go faint, and fenced code and the properties take their language's colours (details; Settings → Editor turns it off)
- Emoji shortcodes -
:rocket: and friends render as real emoji
- Fit to width - Wide tables and diagrams grow a Fit button that shrinks them to the reading column
- Draft recovery - Unsaved quick notes are stashed continuously and offered back on the next launch. With Close without asking (Settings → Editor), closing Tinta skips the save prompt and keeps unsaved edits as drafts for the next launch
- Create on click - Clicking a missing file reference offers to create the file and opens it ready to type
- Text-file references -
.txt, .json, .yaml and friends link like Markdown files and open as highlighted documents
- Update check - Portable builds check GitHub once a day and offer a new release as a quiet, dismissible chip
- Search - Find text with F or Ctrl+F, cycle through matches with Enter; every match shows as a tick on the scrollbar. Ctrl+Shift+F, or the list button at the end of the search bar, opens a results panel beside the page: every match with a snippet, grouped under its heading, then the matches in your other open tabs and in the document's folder, by line. A click jumps to a match, or opens another file in its own tab at that match
- Persistent settings - Remembers your theme, zoom level, and window position
- Portable mode - Create a
settings.ini next to tinta.exe (an empty file works) and the whole configuration — settings, custom themes, languages, drafts — lives beside the executable and travels with it; without one, everything stays in %APPDATA%\Tinta
- Localized interface - English, Simplified Chinese, Japanese, Korean, German, French, and Italian UI; follows Windows or a chosen language
- Text selection & copy - Select text and copy to clipboard
- Touch - On a touchscreen a finger scrolls the page, the editor, the side panels and Help, and a flick carries on until a finger catches it; a tap clicks, a double tap selects a word, and a press held on a word selects it, extends word by word as the finger slides, and opens the context menu where it lifts (in the preview beside the editor, Copy and Select all). The application menu has Exit editing for leaving the editor without a keyboard, and a tap beside Help closes it. The mouse and pen work as before
- Zoom support - Ctrl+scroll to zoom in/out
- Drag & drop - Drop any Markdown or Mermaid file to view it
- Minimal footprint - Small binary, minimal dependencies
Keyboard Shortcuts
| Key | Action |
|---|
B | Toggle folder browser |
Tab | Toggle table of contents (type to filter, Enter jumps) |
A | Annotate the selected text |
F / Ctrl+F | Open search |
Enter | Next search match |
Ctrl+Shift+F | Search results panel: every match beside the page |
ESC | Close overlay / Quit |
T | Open theme chooser |
S | Toggle stats overlay |
Ctrl+C | Copy selected text (or all if none selected) |
Ctrl+A | Select all text |
Ctrl+Scroll | Zoom in/out |
Arrow keys / J/K | Scroll |
Mouse back/forward / Alt+←/→ | Walk link jumps with scroll restore |
Page Up/Down | Page scroll |
Home/End | Jump to start/end |
Ctrl+G | Go to a line by its number, in the editor or the reading view |
: / Ctrl+E | Enter edit mode |
ESC ESC | Exit edit mode |
Ctrl+N | New quick note — a fresh window, start typing right away; Ctrl+S names it via the save dialog. While the note is still empty, an Open a file button (Ctrl+O) in the preview pane picks an existing file instead |
Ctrl+S | Save (in edit mode) |
Ctrl+Shift+S | Save As: the editor writes the buffer to a new path, the viewer saves a copy, and the document continues under the new name |
Ctrl+H | Find and replace (in edit mode): Tab switches fields, Enter replaces, Ctrl+Enter replaces all |
Ctrl+P | Print / export to PDF; the preview picks the paper, orientation and margins |
Ctrl+E | In Source, show/hide the preview pane; in Live, read the page at full width, and Ctrl+E again to go back |
Ctrl+Shift+E | Read the unsaved edits at full width; Esc returns to the source (in edit mode) |
Ctrl+W | Toggle word wrap (in edit mode) |
Alt+↑ / Alt+↓ | Move the current line, or the selected lines, up or down (in edit mode) |
Drag / Ctrl+drag | Move the selected text to where you let go, or leave a copy there; Esc cancels (in edit mode) |
Ctrl+Alt+↑ / Ctrl+Alt+↓ / Alt+Click | Add a caret above, below or at the click; Esc returns to one caret (in edit mode) |
Ctrl+D | Select the word, then add its next occurrence as another caret (in edit mode) |
Ctrl+F4 | Close the current tab (viewer and edit mode) |
Q | Quit |
Customization
Shortcut profiles (Settings → Keyboard shortcuts): pick Windows
(E edits, F1 opens help, F searches — the default), Vim (/
searches, : edits, ? helps), or Custom. The Edit button opens a
shortcut editor: click an action, press its new key. Raw : and ?
always work regardless of profile.
Settings live in a plain INI file at %APPDATA%\Tinta\settings.ini (theme,
zoom, window placement, word wrap, and more — written on exit). The [Keys]
section holds the Custom profile's bindings if you prefer editing by hand:
change a value and restart Tinta. Accepted values are letters, digits,
Tab, Space, F1–F12, or any single character.
[Keys]
search=F
browse=B
toc=Tab
theme=T
stats=S
quit=Q
newfile=N
zen=F11
scrollup=K
scrolldown=J
edit=:
help=?
Ctrl combos (save, print, copy, word wrap…) are fixed. The help overlay and
context menu show whatever keys are currently bound.
Other settings of note: browserFocusPath=1 makes B open the file browser
with the path box focused and selected, so paste + Enter jumps anywhere
(also in Settings → General). tinta --new starts an untitled quick note
from the command line. The print preview offers 12.7, 19.05 and 25.4 mm page
margins; printMarginMm= takes any value from 5 to 50 for printing and PDF.
cjkFont= names an installed face for a document's Chinese, Japanese and
Korean letters, ahead of the ones Tinta falls back to (Microsoft YaHei UI
first on most systems): a face with lighter bold weights, such as Source Han
Sans or DengXian, sets bold CJK more evenly. mathFont= names one for
equations, such as Latin Modern Math. Both are read at start, and a face that
is not installed is passed over.
The interface language is available in Settings → General. It follows the
Windows display language by default, or can be changed explicitly. Transient
notifications and native error dialogs use the same language. Additional
translations can be added through languages.ini; the app remains a native,
single-file Windows viewer with no web runtime.
Building
Requires Windows with Visual Studio 2019+ and CMake 3.15+.
mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
cmake --build . --config Release
The executable will be at build/Release/tinta.exe.
Usage
# Open a Markdown file
tinta.exe document.md
# Open a Mermaid flowchart
tinta.exe diagram.mmd
# Open with light theme
tinta.exe -l document.md
# Show stats on startup
tinta.exe -s document.md
# Register for Markdown and Mermaid files
tinta.exe /register
Or simply drag and drop a .md, .mmd or .puml file onto the window (.plantuml works too).
To copy a document's full path, right-click the document or its tab (the filename
in the title bar when only one file is open) and choose
Copy file path, beside Reveal in Explorer. The tab menu copies the clicked
tab's path, even if another tab is active. Untitled notes have no path until saved.
File Association
On first launch, Tinta will ask if you want to set it as the default viewer for Markdown, Mermaid and PlantUML files. If you choose "No", you won't be asked again.
To register Tinta as the default viewer later, run:
tinta.exe /register
This registers .md, .markdown, .mmd, .puml and .plantuml so you can select Tinta as their default app in Windows Settings.
Mermaid Support
Tinta natively renders twenty-two Mermaid diagram families in .mmd files and fenced mermaid code blocks — no web engine involved:
- Flowcharts (
flowchart / graph) - TB/TD, BT, LR, RL layouts, subgraph groups, common node shapes, directed and labeled edges, classDef/class/style styling, and graceful handling of Mermaid 11 edge IDs and node configs
- Sequence diagrams - participants and actors with aliases and
<br/> breaks, every arrow family, activations, notes, autonumber, and loop/alt/opt/par/critical/break frames
- Class diagrams - member blocks, stereotypes,
~T~ generics, all relation kinds with multiplicities, note and note for
- State diagrams -
[*] start/end, choice/fork/join, descriptions, directions, inline notes
- ER diagrams - attribute tables with keys, full crow's-foot cardinality notation
- C4 diagrams (
C4Context/C4Container/C4Component/C4Dynamic/C4Deployment) - persons, systems, containers, and components in the standard C4 palette, nested boundaries, labeled relations
- Requirement diagrams - typed requirement and element boxes with labeled relations
- Architecture diagrams (
architecture-beta) - services with line-art icons, groups, junctions, and side-anchored edges
- Block diagrams (
block-beta) - column grids, spans, spaces, nested blocks, block arrows, labeled edges
- Sankey diagrams (
sankey-beta) - ranked nodes with smooth flow ribbons
- Packet diagrams (
packet-beta) - 32-bit rows with labeled bit-range fields
- Kanban boards - columns and cards with ticket, assignee, and priority metadata
- Treemaps (
treemap-beta) and radar charts (radar-beta)
- Pie charts, git graphs, gantt charts (including the numeric
dateFormat X axis), mindmaps, timelines, user journeys, quadrant charts, and XY charts (xychart-beta)
Diagrams follow the active theme, print through Ctrl+P, export as SVG in HTML and as crisp images in DOCX, and their text is selectable and searchable like any other content. Anything a native renderer does not cover yet (composite states, zenuml) falls back to readable source code.
PlantUML Support
PlantUML diagrams render through the real PlantUML tool. Tinta never bundles PlantUML, never downloads anything, and makes no network calls - you point it at a tool you already have: either a native plantuml.exe, or a plantuml.jar run through the java found on your PATH. PlantUML runs in its sandbox security profile, so a diagram in a document you open cannot read files from your disk or fetch anything from the network.
- Configuration - the Settings dialog has a PlantUML diagrams row. Press Browse and pick the exe or the jar; the row then shows the exact command Tinta resolved (for a jar, the
java executable plus the jar path). A plantuml.exe on PATH is auto-detected without touching any setting. The choice persists as plantumlPath in settings.ini.
- What renders - fenced
plantuml, puml and pu blocks inside Markdown, and standalone .puml or .plantuml files, which open straight as a diagram and join the open/save dialogs, drag-and-drop and file-association registration.
- Diagram families - every family the real tool draws from an
@startuml block: sequence, use case, class, activity, component, state, object, deployment, timing, gantt and the rest. Detection is anchored on @startuml (named blocks such as @startuml Flow and @startuml(Flow) included); non-UML PlantUML start tags such as @startjson, @startyaml or @startmindmap are not detected and fall back to readable source.
- Where it works - the preview, print and PDF export, HTML export (the SVG PlantUML produced is inlined), DOCX export (a PNG is embedded), and the copy-diagram-as-image button (a 2x PNG). The editor's diagram-template picker offers three PlantUML starters: sequence, class and activity.
- Fallback - no tool configured, no
@startuml anchor, or a failed or timed-out render leaves readable source code on the page - never a broken image.
PlantUML ships several license flavors, and some of them (the plantuml-mit jar, for example) omit a few non-UML extras such as ditaa while still generating every UML diagram; Tinta works with any flavor. Setup and troubleshooting: PlantUML support.
Themes
Press T to open the theme chooser:
Light Themes:
- Paper - Warm sepia, literary feel
- Sakura - Soft pink elegance
- Arctic - Cool blue-white
- Meadow - Fresh green
- Dusk - Warm gray twilight
Dark Themes:
- Midnight - Deep blue-black
- Dracula - Purple-tinted dark
- Forest - Deep green
- Ember - Warm charcoal
- Abyss - Pure black (OLED-friendly)
Custom themes live in themes.ini beside the portable executable, or in
%APPDATA%\Tinta. Add inlinecode to a [theme] section to color inline code
independently of fenced blocks:
code=334455
inlinecode=B00020
Here inline code is red and plain fenced code stays neutral. Syntax highlighting
keeps its own colors. Without inlinecode, inline code uses code as before.
The override is preserved when saving a theme from the editor and applies to
HTML and DOCX exports. Native printing keeps Tinta's light print palette, set in
the theme's fonts.
For supported code-fence languages and aliases, including SQL, PowerShell, Java,
PHP, HTML/XML, CSS, YAML and Markdown, see Syntax highlighting.
The Frontmatter settings page controls property display and optional created/updated dates.
Named, repeated and multiline footnotes include native navigation and HTML/DOCX export.
Individual H1-H6, marked-text, bold, italic, selection and rule colours are described in Theme colours.
Dependencies
- MD4C - Fast markdown parser (fetched automatically by CMake)
- Windows Direct2D/DirectWrite (system libraries)
License
MIT
