Tinta

Markdown, distilled.

A fast, lightweight markdown reader for Windows

Built with Direct2D and DirectWrite for hardware-accelerated rendering. <1MB binary, ~200ms startup.

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
• Rich tables - Tables with bold, italic, code, and clickable links in cells
• Folder browser - Press B to browse and open markdown files
• Table of contents - Press Tab to see document headings, click to jump
• Edit mode - Press : to edit markdown with live preview, search works in editor too
• Search - Find text with F or Ctrl+F, cycle through matches with Enter
• Persistent settings - Remembers your theme, zoom level, and window position
• Text selection & copy - Select text and copy to clipboard
• Zoom support - Ctrl+scroll to zoom in/out
• Drag & drop - Drop any markdown file to view it
• Minimal footprint - Small binary, minimal dependencies

Keyboard Shortcuts

Key	Action
B	Toggle folder browser
Tab	Toggle table of contents
F / Ctrl+F	Open search
Enter	Next search match
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
Page Up/Down	Page scroll
Home/End	Jump to start/end
: / ö	Enter edit mode
ESC ESC	Exit edit mode
Ctrl+S	Save (in edit mode)
Ctrl+W	Toggle word wrap (in edit mode)
Q	Quit

Building

Requires Windows with Visual Studio 2019+ and CMake 3.25+.

Using CMake Presets (recommended)

# Configure and build in one step
cmake --workflow --preset release

# Debug build
cmake --workflow --preset debug

Manual

mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
cmake --build . --config Release

The executable will be at build/tinta.exe.

Usage

# Open a markdown file
tinta.exe document.md

# Open with light theme
tinta.exe -l document.md

# Show stats on startup
tinta.exe -s document.md

# Register as default .md viewer
tinta.exe /register

Or simply drag and drop a .md file onto the window.

File Association

On first launch, Tinta will ask if you want to set it as the default viewer for .md files. If you choose "No", you won't be asked again.

To register Tinta as the default viewer later, run:

tinta.exe /register

This sets up the file association in the Windows registry so you can double-click any .md file to open it in Tinta.

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)

Dependencies

• MD4C - Fast markdown parser (fetched automatically by CMake)
• Windows Direct2D/DirectWrite (system libraries)

License

MIT