raulkivi/md2p

md2p

Markdown to Print (md2p)

md2p is a small command-line utility for rendering Markdown files to the terminal, using ANSI (or nroff) escape sequences for styling. It is intended as a lightweight helper to preview Markdown content without leaving the terminal.

Version

Current version: 1.0.2

Features

• Renders to stdout with ANSI colour/style escapes, or nroff overstrike sequences via --nroff
• Simple CLI usage with a Markdown file path, or via stdin
• Supported Markdown elements:
• ATX headers #–###### (each level styled distinctly) and setext headers (===/---)
• Horizontal rules, blockquotes, fenced code blocks ( /~~~)
• Ordered and unordered lists, including nested indentation

• Tables, rendered as bordered ASCII grids
• Inline formatting: bold, italic, bold+italic, inline code, links, images
• Non-printable bytes and hidden Unicode variation selectors (a common vector for invisible watermarks/payloads) are never passed through silently — each is replaced with a visible hex marker (see example below)
• Input is capped at 50 MB and raw ANSI escapes in the source file are stripped before rendering, so a malicious Markdown file can't inject terminal escape sequences

Installation

• Ensure you have Python 3.8+ installed.
• (Optional) Create and activate a virtual environment:

python3 -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate

There are no external dependencies required by default.

From PyPI

pip install md2p
# or, without installing into an environment:
uvx md2p README.md

Linux (user install)

To install md2p for your user on Linux, use the included install.sh to copy the script to ~/.local/bin (or your XDGBINHOME):

chmod +x install.sh
./install.sh
# or specify destination explicitly
./install.sh --dest "$HOME/.local/bin"

Uninstall with: