mxMarkEdit

Version 1.3.9, published on February 23 2025.

Author and copyright: Massimo Nardello, Modena (Italy) 2024 - 2025.

Read this manual in PDF.

Read the Italian translation of this manual in PDF.

The PDF manual may be downloaded also within the app, with the Help - Download manual menu item.

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To watch some English video about the functionalities of mxMarkEdit, see https://www.youtube.com/@MassimoNardello. The conversations have been generated by Google NotebookLM in January 2025 just from this Readme.md file, while the pictures are just the screenshots of the app.

😀 Do you use mxMarkEdit, and you feel that it has far too many shortcuts and functionalities that definitely make it not for humans? Download this nice wallpaper to show everybody why!

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mxMarkEdit is a free software for Mac for writing texts and todo items in Markdown format and easily exporting them to other formats with Pandoc, provided that it’s installed in the system in use. In each document, it’s available an Excel-like grid useful to manage various sets of data, and also a file manager to search for a sentence in all the documents or spreadsheets contained in a folder. It's also possible to use the app as a presentation manager. Finally, mxMarkEdit has a built-in bibliographic manager which may use the bibliography stored in the grid to compile the citations within a document in a way that resembles the one used by BibLaTex.

The software has been written in Lazarus and is released under the GPL version 3 license or following, available in www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.html. The software runs in English or Italian.

mxMarkEdit doesn't use Electron because of its performance and security issues. The formatting of Markdown text is made by an original algorithm written in Free Pascal.

mxMarkEdit has been deeply influenced by Org-mode. Although it has far less functionalities and customisations than the latter, it’s a standard Mac app which benefits of the Apple spell checking and standard shortcuts.

Privacy

mxMarkEdit does not collect any user data and does not access autonomously to his or her pictures, files or any other personal data. The data created with the app are stored only on the computer of the user and possibly on his or her cloud.

Download and install

In the app directory of the source code there is an app compiled for Mac with the Silicon chip (M1 or following) ready to be copied in the Application directory and run.

The app is notarized by Apple (checked against harmful code), so it can run without any trouble also on recent macOS versions.

To download the app, click on this link: https://github.com/maxnd/mxMarkEdit/raw/main/app/mxMarkEdit.zip.

To install Pandoc, not necessary to use the app but necessary to export the Markdown files in other formats, click on this link: https://pandoc.org/installing.html.

To open automatically Markdown files with mxMarkEdit, follow the Apple Guidelines.

In the untested folder of the source code there's a version of the app compiled for Mac with Intel chip. It's neither tested nor notarized.

Look of the app

The software looks like this, with one possible color setting:

When the tables grid is shown, the software looks like this:

A normal presentation in Markdown format looks like this:

The same presentation optimized with Tools - Optimize presentation... and shown in presentation mode looks like this:

The form that summarises the todo items typed in the document looks like this:

The form of the options of the app looks like this:

Screenshots of the app used as meeting manager with fancy data

Formatting

Some Markdown markers are hidden, as the text that follows them or is contained within them is properly formatted. These markers are:

• headers (beginning with #, ##, ###, ####, ##### and ######);
• italics (* or _), bold (** or __) and bold italics (*** or ___);
• code, shown in monospace font (`);
• citations, which start with the character > followed by a space, that are shown with a lighter or darker background, according to the mode in use.

Other Markdown markers are not hidden, but are shown in a different color defined by the user:

• lines of code, shown in monospace font, among two markers ``` at the beginning of a paragraph;
• footnotes, like [^1] and [^1]: Text of the footnote;
• inline footnotes, like ^[Text of the footnote.];
• links to websites or files, like [my web site](www.mywebsite.com);
• links to pictures, like ![my picture](img.jpg).

The markers cannot be escaped as far as the formatting of mxMarkEdit is concerned. Pandoc should instead manage them properly.

To have a Markdown document properly exported in other formats with Pandoc, the paragraphs must be separated by an empty line, except in the lists, numbered or not.

When a paragraph starts with a list heading (*, +, - or a number followed by a dot and a space), the Return key creates a new paragraph with the same heading. The numbered lists are properly renumbered if necessary.

To move a heading and all its relative content, included possible headings of lower level (that is, having more # at the beginning), in another position of the text, move the cursor within this heading without doing any selection and cut all in the clipboard with the shortcut Meta + Shift + X. The text in the clipboard can then be pasted elsewhere.

Links are properly recognized and formatted if the formatting is not disabled. Anyway, if they contain some Markdown markers, like * or _, these markers are hidden, although they are still present and the link works normally when clicked upon. To show the link with all its characters, even possible markers, format it as a line of code including it among two `. Anyway, when the link is formatted as a proper Markdown link, like [my web site](www.mywebsite.com), the possible Markdown markers are properly shown.

The formatting should work instantly, without delaying the typing, at least up to about 250,000 characters (test made in a Mac Pro with M1 chip and 8 GB of RAM). To work speedily with bigger documents, disable the formatting and, if necessary, also the titles and todo list (see below the Edit menu notes). In this way, even a text of few millions of characters may be modified without any delay in typing.

By default, the app deactivate text formatting for documents bigger than 250,000 characters. This value can be modified in the options of the app (see below) to fit the performance of one's own Mac. The size of the document is calculated by the size of the file, not counting the characters, so it could be a bit inaccurate.

Titles and todo list

At the left of the text, there’s a list of the titles (starting with #) and todo items (starting with – [ ] or – [X]). By clicking on an item in this list, the cursor moves to the corresponding title or todo item. While moving the cursor in the text, the corresponding title or todo item is highlighted.

Above this list there is combo box in which it’s possible to select the level of the headings to be shown. The todo items and the heading under which the cursor is located are always shown.

In the todo items, it’s possible to add a deadline. The format of the date should be year-month-day, where month and day are always of two digits. The date must be followed by 3 separator characters before the title of the todo item. For instance: - [X] 2024-12-05 • Buy some food. The shortcut Meta + T mentioned also below insert automatically the todo marker and the deadline in the proper format with a delay in days that is specified by the user in the options of the app (the default is 7 days).

To assign a todo item to one or more resources (persons), insert their names everywhere in the title of the item preceded by @; each resource name must end with a space, a period, a comma, a colon or a semicolon. For instance: - [X] 2024-12-05 • @Mark, @John - Buy some food, or - [X] 2024-12-05 • @Mark; @John. - Buy some food. It will be possible to filter the todo items by resource in the todo form.

Tables

At the bottom of the text there’s an Excel-like grid of 105 columns and 10,000 rows which may contain simple tables, which are horizontal portions of this grid. This is hidden by default, and can be shown dragging up with the mouse the splitter at the bottom of the text, or with the shortcut Meta + Shift + T. In the first column on the left, named Tables names, the user must type the name of a table (e.g. Books), and in the columns at its right (A1, B1, etc.) all the necessary fields (e.g. Author, Title, Year, etc.). The name in the first column is shown with the color of the headings 2, while the fields have the color of the headings 3. Below the fields, it’s possible to insert any kind of data. It’s possible to add more tables in the grid, adding other names under the Table names column followed by some fields, like in the second screenshot above.

If it’s necessary to insert dates in a field, use the format year-month-day, where month and day are always of two digits (e.g. 2025-01-05), so that the sorting on this field will produce a correct result. See below for some shortcuts useful to insert and change the dates.

The content of the grid is saved in a separate file with the same name of the one in use, but with the .csv extension. In this file the items are separated by tabs, and it may be easily imported in a spreadsheet. When the current document is exported to Pandoc, if there are some data in the grid, the software creates a new file with the extension .export which contains both the document and the tables properly formatted in Markdown format. In the converted document in Word or Writer format, the tables are located at the end of the text.

When a .cvs file is loaded, the grid is not automatically shown, but in the status bar at the bottom, after the name of the .md file, it’s shown the label & .csv, to alert the user that there are some data inside the grid.

In the grid, it’s possible to select more cells dragging the mouse or holding the Shift key and pressing the arrow keys. The selected text can be copied in the clipboard and pasted in another position of the grid or in a document, or deleted. It’s possible also to paste some data copied from a spreadsheet like Excel or Numbers. See below for the shortcuts useful to do that. It's also possible to auto resize the width of the columns with a double click at the right of their headings.

To edit easily a cell in the grid, it's available an extended editor activated with the shortcut Ctrl + Space. In this editor no formatting is available, but the links are properly recognized. To quit the editor, use the Close button or press ESC.

At the bottom, there’s the Find field useful to search for data contained in the grid. Type within it the text to be found and press Return or the shortcut Meta + G to select the following cell after the current one in just the current field (column) of the current table that contains that text, or Shift + Return or the shortcut Meta + Shift G to select the previous cell before the current one in just the current field (column) of the current table that contains that text. Anyway, if the selected column is the first, containing the table names, the search will look for the following or previous table name. The search is case insensitive. To continue the search, select again the field and press Return or Shift + Return, or use the shortcut Meta + G or Meta + Shift + G when the grid is focused.

If a cell contains a formula, in the cell below it will be reported the result of the calculation of all the numbers contained in the previous cells of the same field (column) and of the same table. The result will be updated when a value in those cells will be changed. Textual contents and improperly formatted numbers will not be considered. The name of the table and of the field (column) must be specified, otherwise no result will be shown.

The formulas are the followings:

• ------ or ---sum: reports the sum of the numbers;
• ---max: reports the bigger number;
• ---min: reports the smaller number;
• ---avg: reports the average of the numbers;
• ---count: reports the total number of the numbers;

The formulas are shown in the color set by the user for the code (see below the option of the app for more information).

It's possible to sort the content of the current column of the current table with the shortcut Meta + Ctrl + S (ascending) or Meta + Ctrl + Shift + S (descending). Numeric content are put before textual ones, and the possible empty lines before numbers. If a formula is present in any column, the sorting is limited to the rows before it. If no formula is present and the table is not followed by another table, with a name in the tables names column, it's necessary to mark the bottom row of the current table creating a fictional table after it; it's enough to write just its name.

To replace the content of the grid with the tables contained in a .csv file created with mxMarkEdit, use the menu item File - Import tables.... To delete the content of the grid so that it’s not loaded any more, delete the related file with the .csv extension when it’s not loaded.

See below for some useful shortcuts available in this grid.

Bibliographic management

mxMarkEdit may be used to manage a bibliography and to insert citations of the books and articles into a document appropriately formatted, in a way similar to BibLaTex. To use this feature of the app, proceed as follows.

Creating one or more bibliographic tables

In mxMarkEdit, the tables containing a bibliography must be structured as follows.

The first column on the left must contain the name of the table, as usual. Several bibliographic tables may be inserted in sequence with different names to structure the bibliographic material in various areas.

The second column (A1) must contain the key of the work, that is, some words or numbers that identify it uniquely within all the tables contained in the grid. It is suggested to use the surname of the first author followed by a space and the year of publication. If there are multiple works by the same author published in the same year, a progressive lowercase letter may be added after the year. For example, to report the bibliographic data of a book written by R. Taylor in 2024, the key could be Taylor 2024. If there were multiple works published by the same author in 2024, the subsequent works would have the key Taylor 2024a, Taylor 2024b, etc. It is the user's responsibility to verify that the key assigned to a work is unique, that is, it has not already been assigned to another work. To do this, use the shortcut Meta + Ctrl + K, active just in this column, to make it unique. If the key is composed as surname + year, sorting the works by key will sort them by author and then by year.

The third column (B1) must contain the author or authors of the work with the formatting required for the bibliography that will be inserted at the end of the document. In order for the authors to be ordered alphabetically, their surname must be inserted before their name.

The fourth column (C1) must contain the author or authors of the work with the formatting required for footnotes. Normally, the name is bulleted and precedes the surname.

The fifth column (D1) must contain the full title of the work; it's necessary to insert the italics markers (asterisks) if needed.

The sixth column (E1) must contain the abbreviated title of the work, which will be used for citations of a work subsequent to the first; it's necessary to insert the italics markers (asterisks) if needed.

The seventh column (F1) must contain the details of the citation, such as the publisher, place of publication, year and total pages (not relating to the single citation) in the case of articles or miscellanies.

In the following columns can be freely insert the data considered useful, also using the extended editor that is activated with Ctrl + Space. For example, it may be needed a field in which to insert comments on the work, even of a certain length, or the name of the relative PDF file, a link to the publisher's website, and so on. The columns after F1 will be ignored by the app for the purposes of compiling citations.

It's possible to copy and paste in the grid any kind of citation taken from reference managers like Zotero and Mendeley as well as from websites or library catalogs. Follow these simple steps.

• Copy in the clipboard the citation from a website or a reference manager; in Zotero, use the shortcut Meta + Shift + A or Meta + Shift + C.
• Paste the content of the clipboard temporarily in the current document; if there are more citations, each of them must be in a different paragraph.
• In each item, separate the author(s) from the title and the title from the following details with a tab, replacing the comma and space or the dot and space that usually separate these elements; remove also the possible semicolon or period at the end of each citation.
• Select the citation(s) and copy them in the clipboard with the shortcut Meta + Opt + C.
• Paste the citation(s) in the B1 column of a new row in the grid; all the data will fill properly the following cells; the titles will be included among the italics markers if they do not begin and end with quotation marks.
• Check and possibly change the name of the author(s) for bibliography and footnotes in the B1 and C1 columns, and the short title in the E1 column.
• Add the key in the A1 column and use the shortcut Meta + Ctrl + K to make it unique.

Finally, it's possible to keep and update all the bibliography in just one .cvs file in order to avoid scattering it in many files. Then it's easy to update the bibliographic tables of each other file in use with the latest version of data importing that main bibliographic file with the menu item File - Import tables....

Inserting citations in the text

To insert a citation of a work in the document, normally in the footnotes, just insert its identification key between two curly brackets, followed by all the detailed elements necessary for the single citation. For example, Cf. {Taylor 2024}, pp. 23-46.. It's necessary to be careful in typing correctly the key of the work to be quoted, respecting uppercase and lowercase. To do this, just display the bibliographic table, identify the key to be reported, copy it in clipboard with the shortcut Meta + Opt + C and paste it into the text.

If it's necessary to quote an ancient text contained in a modern edition and to mention a number or chapter of its passage after the original title, use the key just for the modern work, and quote manually the first. For instance: S. Augustine, *De Civitate Dei* I, 1-36, in {Augustine 2020}, 50.. Of course, only the modern edition will appear in the bibliography.

Producing a document with bibliography

Once the document has been completed and the keys of the various works have been inserted, the menu item Tools - Compile bibliography can be used. In this way, mxMarkEdit creates another file in the same folder as the one in use, with the same name and the extension - with bibliography. In this file, the various keys are replaced by the actual citations of the works, in the following way.

• The first citation of a work is composed by associating the contents of columns C1, D1 and F1 separated by a comma.
• The second citation of a work is composed by associating the contents of columns C1, E1 (abbreviated title) and F1 separated by a comma.
• If a citation is about the same work as the immediately preceding citation, the word Ibidem is inserted in italics in place of its bibliographic data.
• The bibliography is inserted at the end of the text. It contains all and only the works actually cited in the document, and is created associating the content of columns B1, D1 and F1 separated by a comma. The bibliography is ordered alphabetically.

If a Ibidem is followed by the same page numbers of the previous citations, they may be removed manually if this is required by the editorial rules.

In case the citations need to be formatted differently to correspond to other methodological requests, it is enough to correct only the content of column F1, containing the details of the works, in all the tables, and then to regenerate the document with bibliography. So, there's no need to correct all the individual citations contained in the document.

While in mxMarkEdit it's not possible to format the authors in small caps, it's easy to do this in a Word or Writer document exported with Pandoc. In the bibliography table, format the authors like this: [Taylor, Bill]{.smallcaps}. When exported with Pandoc, the final document will have the authors in small caps.

mxMarkEdit and other reference managers

As is apparent from these notes, the bibliographic manager of mxMarkEdit, while not having the functionality of more specialized software such as Zotero and Mendeley, is a much simpler and more usable tool, both for those who plan to dedicate themselves to research only temporarily, to simply write a dissertation, and for those who find the system of composing citations based on style sheets too complex and dangerous.

This approach allows to reformat all the citations of a document simply by changing the style sheet in use, but it becomes tricky when there's no style that perfectly matches the methodological needs of one's institution or publisher. Furthermore, there is always the risk that in particular cases the style sheet does not give the desired results. The approach used by mxMarkEdit is much more solid, as the citation, even the part that follows the title, is composed by the user in its final form, and therefore is certainly correct. Even if this involves the need to rewrite it if it's necessary to adapt to other methodological requests, the user never runs into dangerous malfunctions.

Anyway, it's also possible to use Zotero or Mendeley as main bibliographic manager and import from their data all the items that are relevant for a specific article or book inserting them in a bibliographic table with the shortcuts shown above. In this way, one sticks with a solid and fully featured bibliographic manager but may use at the same time the simpler and secure bibliographic system of mxMarkEdit to compile the citations.

Finally, the mxMarkEdit bibliographic database, being contained in a .csv file, can always be read and modified, maybe by writing some code, so that it can be imported into other software.

Presentations

it’s possible to use the app for presentations:

1. load a document, possibly with some tables, containing the sequential text of the slides in Markdown format, with many paragraphs under titles and subtitles, like a normal text;
2. make mxMarkEdit window full screen and enlarge possibly the font size of the document so that it can be seen easily by the participants;
3. share the interface of mxMarkEdit with a video projector or on a video call with apps like Webex, FaceTime or Zoom;
4. use the shortcut Meta + E to begin the presentation showing the paragraph following the current one, or Meta + Shift + E to do that showing the paragraph previous the current one, both in black or white, according to the theme in use, skipping the empty lines, and fading the other text; when the presentation mode is enabled with one of these two shortcuts, the following or previous paragraphs may be selected also with the shortcuts Meta + Arrow down and Meta + Arrow up;
5. comment the content of the paragraph in black or white; the participants see the text that is currently focused, and its position in the structure of the document in the left bar, which anyway can be hidden;
6. if the reference to some tables is needed, show the grid, locate the table and comment its data with the participants using possibly the zoom functionalities of Mac to make visible the small numbers.

In presentation mode, the status bar is hidden, and the spell checking is automatically disabled. To quit the presentation mode, press Esc or click anywhere in the text. Possibly, reenable the spell checking.

If in the document there is a link to a picture at the beginning of a paragraph and properly formatted (e.g. ![Data on sales](file:///Users/massimo/Downloads/sales-data.jpg), that picture will be shown during the presentation. To close the picture, click on it or press ESC.

Keep the presentation in standard Markdown format, to be able to export it with Pandoc without any trouble, and then create a copy of it optimized for mxMarkEdit with the menu item Tools - Optimize presentation... if it has to be presented with mxMarkEdit.

To export an mxMarkEdit presentation in PDF so that it can be shown on any computer, save all the screenshots from the current position to the end of the document with Meta + Ctrl + E; the text will be scrolled automatically, and it will take 2 seconds to get each screenshot; press ESC to interrupt the process. Then select all the screenshots in the Download directory, Ctrl + click on them and choose the Quick Options - Create PDF. The screenshots are numbered progressively. To restart the number of the ones to be created, restart the app. The pictures will not be shown nor exported.

Files management

The File - Search in files... menu item open a form to search a word or a sentence within all the .md (document) and .csv (tables) files contained in a folder specified by the user, including its possible subfolders. Specify the folder to search in with the button Set folder, whose value will be remembered by the app, and then type the text to search for in the field Find. Then press Return or click on the button Find.

The \n code finds the Line feed, which in macOS or Linux are the paragraph breaks, the \r code finds the Enter while the \t code finds the tabs. In document written on Windows systems, the paragraph breaks are made by Line feed + Enter.

In the grid above the buttons it will be shown a row for each occurrence of the text to be found both in the documents and in the tables files, along with the context in which it appears (some words before and after it). The columns of the grid – path, file name and context – can be sorted with a click on their headers. Press Return on a row of the grid, or double click on it to open the corresponding file and to move the cursor to the position of the text to be found, or, if the file is a .csv one, to the cell that contains it.

The search in files returns maximum 100 recurrences for each document or spreadsheet analysed, and stops at 5,000 global recurrences, asking the user to possibly specify more words to find. Emojis too can be searched for.

Moving the mouse over the label of the file path and name, at the bottom left of the main interface of the app, a hint appears with the complete content, even if in the label it's truncated due to its length.

Menu items

The last eight opened files are available in the File menu. When they are opened, the cursor move to the last position it had during the last editing, and the width of the columns of the grid is restored.

The Edit - Find menu item allows to find the first occurrence – with the button First or by pressing Return - or the following occurrences – with the button Next or by pressing Meta + Return – of a sentence, or the previous ones with the button Previous, or to replace the text selected with the previous buttons and search for another recurrence with the button Replace and find, or to replace all the occurrences with the button Replace all. Search and replacement are not case sensitive. See below for some useful shortcuts to use these functionalities.

When using the Replace all button, the \n code replaces the Line feed, which in macOS or Linux is the paragraph break, the \r code replaces the Enter while the \t code replaces the tabs, both in the Search text field and in the Replace with field. In document written on Windows systems, the paragraph breaks are made by Line feed + Enter. Finally, when looking for the next recurrence of an emoji, it might be necessary to move the cursor after the previous finding to find the next one.

The Edit - Insert link to file menu item allows to select one or more files and to insert their paths and names in the text within the Markdown markers and preceded by the file:// heading. All the possible spaces are converted with %20, so that the file name may be properly recognised as a link. It’s not possible to insert relative links due to macOS restrictions.

The Edit - Show current title or todo menu item shows at the top of the left list, after five other items if existing, the title or todo item the cursor is under to.

The Edit - Show todo form menu item opens a form with the list of all the todo items. Pressing Return or double clicking on one of them selects the corresponding item in the document. Click on the headers of the columns of the form sorts the data, initially sorted by deadline. The date of the expired items is shown in red. The combo list at the bottom allows to show only the todo items assigned to a resource. The check box at the bottom allows to hide the todo items already done. The button Toggle state changes the state of the selected todo item from to be done to done, and vice versa. The button Copy copies into the clipboard the visible todo items; the values are separated by tab, so that they may be pasted in the grid or in a spreadsheet. See below for the shortcuts active on this form.

The Edit - Show duplicate words menu item shows in red all the words of each sentence that are present twice in the same sentence or in the previous one, to alert the user to use possibly a synonym. Moving the cursor or clicking somewhere in the text remove the red color.

The Show words recurrence form menu item opens a form with the list of all the words used in the current document, excluded the possible YAML headings (title:, author: etc.), and their recurrence, that is how many times they appear in the document. By default, the list is sorted by recurrence, but it’s possible to click on the radio item Sort by words, at the right bottom, to sort the list by name. Below the grid there is a field in which it’s possible to type the words that should not be considered, like articles, separated by commas. These words are automatically sorted. Below this field, there are some buttons to include the word selected in the grid within the words to skip, to update the results after having changed the words to skip, to copy in the clipboard the content of the grid and to close the form.

The Edit - Disable formatting menu item prevents the formatting of the text, except the normal font name, its color, size and line spacing, greatly improving the performance of the app with very large documents. In the options, it's possible to set the number of characters of a document beyond which it's loaded without formatting, that is just activating automatically this functionality.

The Tools - Optimize presentation... menu item creates a copy of the current presentation optimized to be shown with mxMarkEdit, and saves it with the name of the file in use plus - mxMarkEdit addition. Basically, the various items of first level are separated by an empty paragraph, and the repeated titles of the slides are removed.

The Tools - Convert with Pandoc menu item converts the current document and its possible tables into another format specified in the options of the software. The converted file is created in the same folder of the current document.

The Tools - Open another window menu item opens another instance of the software if the app is located in the Applications directory.

The Tools - Transparency menu item activate or deactivate two levels of transparency of the interface of the software, giving the impression to watch or type on a dark or clear glass, according to the mode in use. This functionality is just for aesthetic reasons.

The Tools - Options menu item opens the options of the app, where are specified

• the name and the color of the font of the text;
• the name and the color of the font for code;
• the color of the links (just the name, the linked file has the code font color);
• the color of the footnotes;
• the color of the todo items;
• the color of the first level titles;
• the color of the second level titles;
• the color of the other levels titles;
• the size of the normal font;
• the size of the code font;
• the line spacing value (1.0 is the default);
• the delay in days for the new deadlines (7 is the default);
• the number of characters of a document beyond which it's loaded without formatting; it's calculated by the size of the file, not counting the characters, so it could be a bit inaccurate;
• the Pandoc options;
• the path of the Pandoc executable;
• the possible template (a file of Word, PowerPoint, Writer, etc.) to use as a reference;
• the format of the file the note should be converted to (.docx, .odt, etc.);
• two buttons to reset the colors of the text in black and white or in various colors; these colors are different for dark and light mode.

A green or red circle is shown at the right of the fields of the path of the Pandoc executable and of the template to inform that the files are present or not. See the Pandoc manual for more information.

The Help - Shortcuts list menu item show a list of all the shortcuts available that are not related to menu items.

The other menu items are self-explaining.

Shortcuts

There are also some shortcuts beyond the ones related to the menu items.

In the main form

• Meta + Z: undo the last action in the document (not in the grid).
• Meta + Shift + Y: redo the last action in the document (not in the grid).
• Meta + Opt + 1-6: select one of the six filter options above the title and todo list.
• Meta + + or -: change the size of the normal font.
• Meta + Ctrl + + or -: change the size of the mono font, use for code.
• Meta + Shift + Backspace: delete the current paragraph.
• Meta + D: insert the current date.
• Meta + Shift + D: insert the current date and time.
• Meta + B: format the selected text in bold, or the current word if no text is selected.
• Meta + I: format the selected text in italics, or the current word if no text is selected.
• Meta + R: if the cursor is inside a numbered list, renumber the list.
• Meta + Shift + R: renumber all the possible footnotes references if they have been manually changed.
• Meta + G: find in the document the next recurrence of the text specified in the search form, even if it’s closed.
• Meta + Shift + G: find in the document the previous recurrence of the text specified in the search form, even if it’s closed.
• Meta + T: create a todo item with a deadline whose delay in days is specified in the options (default is 7), or set it as done or to be done.
• Meta + Opt + T: create a todo item without a deadline, or set it as done or to be done.
• Meta + Opt + Arrow up: move up the current paragraph.
• Meta + Opt + Arrow down: move down the current paragraph.
• Meta + Ctrl + Arrow up: select the previous heading.
• Meta + Ctrl + Arrow down: select the next heading.
• Meta + Opt + .: transform a list with dashes (-) into a numbered list.
• Meta + Ctrl + .: transform a numbered list into a list with dashes (-).
• Meta + Shift + J: set the current position of the cursor in the bookmark.
• Meta + J: move the cursor to the position already set in the bookmark.
• Meta + Shift + P: show the picture contained in a Markdown image link at the beginning of the current paragraph.
• Meta + E: show the following paragraph in black or white, according to the theme in use, skipping the empty lines, and fades the other text; this is useful to use mxMarkEdit for presentations. See above for details.
• Meta + Shift + E: show the previous paragraph in black or white, according to the theme in use, skipping the empty lines, and fades the other text; this is useful to use mxMarkEdit for presentations. See above for details.
• Meta + Arrow down: if presentation mode has been enabled with Meta + E or Meta + Shift + E, show the following paragraph in black or white, according to the theme in use, skipping the empty lines, and fades the other text; this is useful to use mxMarkEdit for presentations. See above for details.
• Meta + Arrow up: if presentation mode has been enabled with Meta + E or Meta + Shift + E, show the previous paragraph in black or white, according to the theme in use, skipping the empty lines, and fades the other text; this is useful to use mxMarkEdit for presentations. See above for details.
• Meta + Ctrl + E: save all the presentation screenshots from the current position to the end of the document in the Downloads directory.
• Meta + U: make uppercase the current word.
• Meta + Opt + Shift + U: make lowercase the current word.
• Meta + Opt + U: capitalize the current word.
• Meta + Shift + T: show the tables grid.
• Meta + Opt + C: copy the selected citations so that they can be properly pasted in the bibliographic table.
• Meta + Shift + X: if the cursor is within a heading, cut in the clipboard the same heading and all the text that is under it, included possible headings of lower levels; this text may be pasted elsewhere;
• Meta + Shift + F:
  • within a footnote reference in the document (e.g. [^1]), move the cursor to the corresponding footnote;
  • within a footnote (e.g. [^1]: This is the text of the footnote.), move the cursor to the corresponding footnote reference in the document;
  • in other positions, create a new footnote reference and a new footnote, both properly automatically numbered.

In the tables grid

• Ctrl + Space: open the extended editor.
• Meta + Opt + C: copy the bibliographic key contained in the second column among curly brackets.
• Meta + Ctrl + K: make unique the current key contained in the second column.
• Meta + Shift + I: insert a new row.
• Backspace: delete the content of the selected cell or cells, after confirmation.
• Meta + Shift + Backspace: delete the current row, after confirmation if it’s not empty.
• Meta + G: search downward the text typed in the Find field starting from the current position and just in the current column (field) of the current table.
• Meta + Shift + G: search upward the text typed in the Find field starting from the current position and just in the current column (field) of the current table.
• Meta + Opt + Arrow up: move up the current row.
• Meta + Opt + Arrow down: move down the current row.
• Meta + Opt + Shift + I: add a new column in the current table, after confirmation.
• Meta + Opt + Shift + Backspace: delete the current column in the current table, after confirmation, if it has a title and if it’s not the first one, containing the tables names.
• Meta + Opt + Arrow left: move left the current column (field) just of the current table (not the entire column of the grid) with its content.
• Meta + Opt + Arrow right: move right the current column (field) just of the current table (not the entire column of the grid) with its content.
• Meta + Ctrl + Arrow up: move the current table, with all its field, before the previous one.
• Meta + Ctrl + Arrow down: move the current table, with all its field, after the following one.
• Meta + Arrow up: in the tables names column, select the previous table title, while in the other columns move the cursor to the top of the grid.
• Meta + Arrow down: in the tables names column, select the following table title, while in the other columns move the cursor to the last edited row of the current column.
• Meta + Arrow left: move the cursor to the first column of the grid.
• Meta + Arrow right: move the cursor to the last right edited column of the current row.
• Ctrl + D: insert the current date except in the tables names column and in the headings.
• Ctrl + Arrow right: if the current cell contains a date, increase it of one day.
• Ctrl + Arrow left: if the current cell contains a date, decrease it of one day.
• Meta + Ctrl + S: sort ascending the content of the current column (field) in the current table, after confirmation; see Tables title above for more information.
• Meta + Ctrl + Shift + S: sort descending the content of the current column (field) in the current table, after confirmation; see Tables title above for more information.
• Meta + Ctrl + F: move the cursor in the search field, if it’s visible.
• Meta + C: copy the content of the selected cells in the clipboard.
• Meta + V: paste the content of the clipboard in the current (and possibly following) cells.
• Esc: undo the last changes while the editor of a cell in the grid is still active.

In the todo form

• Meta + Opt + H: hide the todo items already done.
• Meta + T: toggle the state of the selected todo item from to be done to done, and vice versa.
• Meta + C: copy in the clipboard the todo items.
• Esc: close the form.

In the search files form

• Meta + Shift + F: move the cursor in the Find field.
• Esc: close the form.

In the words recurrence form

• Esc: close the form.

Backup

When a .md file that has been modified is closed, a backup copy is created with the .bak extension. The same happens for the .cvs file, with the .cvs.bak extension.

Configuration files

The software creates these two configuration files that can be deleted to reset the configuration of the app, included the user defined colors:

• /Users/[username]/Library/Preferences/mxmarkedit
• /Users/[username]/Library/Preferences/mxmarkedit.plist

Troubleshooting

• When creating a footnote reference, the cursor gets lost in the text? Be sure to use the version 1.3.4 of following of the app, create a new footnote reference and then possibly delete it. This should fix the problem.

Mentions

• Mentioned in Indie Apps Catalog.

Revision history

Version 1.3.9

• Added Meta + Shift + P to show the picture contained in a Markdown image link at the beginning of the current paragraph.
• Bugs fixing: deleting some cells in the grid didn't activated the save function.

Version 1.3.8

• Bugs fixing: the checking of duplicate words didn't always work as expected.
• Added the shortcut Meta + Shift + G in the grid to search upward.

Version 1.3.7

• Added the possibility to assign a todo item to one or more resources and to filter the items assigned to a resource in the todo form.
• Bugs fixing: in the todo form, the heading of the items without a deadline was not reported.
• Bugs fixing: the find and replace functions could be activated also if the search field was empty.
• Bugs fixing: the checking of duplicate words didn't always work as expected.
• Minor bugs fixing.

Version 1.3.6

• Added the button Replace and find in the search form.
• Corrected and improved the documentation on bibliography manager.

Version 1.3.5

• The Meta + Opt + C shortcut now requires that the author(s), the title and the details of a citations are separated by a tab.
• When a link to a picture is created, it's now properly formatted.

Version 1.3.4

• During presentations, if it's highlighted a link to a picture at the beginning of a paragraph, this picture is shown.
• The shortcut Meta + Opt + C now allows to copy more citations divided in different paragraphs.
• The title of the citations is not italicized by default any more (citations of article don't require that), but the shortcut Meta + Opt + C adds the italics markers to the titles if they don't begin and end with quotation marks.
• Improved the bibliography compilation.
• Bugs fixing: the footnote numbering could not work as expected.
• Minor improvements.

Version 1.3.3

• In the document, added the shortcut Meta + Opt + C to copy a selected citation so that it can be properly pasted in the bibliographic table.
• In the grid, added the Meta + Ctrl + K to make unique the current key in the second column.

Version 1.3.2

• In the grid, added the shortcut Meta + Opt + C to copy the bibliographic key in the clipboard among curly brackets.
• Bugs fixing: the bibliography manager didn't work as expected.
• Bugs fixing: the file search form was not available.

Version 1.3.1

• Added the menu item File - Import tables....
• Small bugs fixing.
• Corrected and improved the documentation.

Version 1.3.0

• Added bibliographic management (see above form information).
• Added the extended edito in the grid, activated by Ctrl + Space.
• Bugs fixing: creating a new footnote when there were some lines after the footnotes block messed the text.

Version 1.2.28

• Small bugs fixing.
• Corrected and improved the documentation.

Version 1.2.27

• In the todo form, the headings of the todo items are now visible in a column.

Version 1.2.26

• Minor graphic improvements in presentation mode.

Version 1.2.25

• Bugs fixing in presentation mode.
• Minor graphic improvements in presentation mode.

Version 1.2.24

• Bugs fixing: sometimes cutting a header in the clipboard didn't work as expected.
• Small bugs fixing.

Version 1.2.23

• Added the shortcut Meta + Ctrl + E to save all the screenshots of the presentation of the current document in the Download directory.

Version 1.2.22

• Added the shortcut Ctrl + D to insert the current date in the grid.
• Added the shortcut Ctrl + Right arrow to increase the date contained in a cell of one day.
• Added the shortcut Ctrl + Left arrow to decrease the date contained in a cell of one day.
• Added the shortcut Meta + C in the todo form, to copy in the clipboard the todo items.
• The last edited files are now eight.

Version 1.2.21

• Bugs fixing in text formatting.

Version 1.2.20

• In the file search open by File - Search in files... menu item, it's now possibile to use \n, \r and \t to look for line feeds, returns and tabs.
• Minor graphic improvements in presentation mode.

Version 1.2.19

• In the options, two buttons have been added to reset the colors of the text in black and white or in various colors; these colors are different for dark and light mode.
• Minor graphic improvements in presentation mode.

Version 1.2.18

• Added some information in the documentation on how to export a mxMarkDown presentation in PDF format and to search for todo items in the Search in files form.
• Small bugs fixing.

Version 1.2.17

• Added menu item File - Insert..., to insert the content of a Markdown file in the current one at the cursor position.
• Deleting an empty row in the grid now doesn't require confirmation.
• Minor graphic improvements in presentation mode.
• Small bugs fixing.

Version 1.2.16

• Bugs fixing: within links, some Markdown markers were hidden and still active in formatting the text.

Version 1.2.15

• Bugs fixing: in the grid below the editor, the text could appear shadowed.

Version 1.2.14

• The menu ? has been renamed as Help.
• Added the possibility to download the manual (see menu item Help - Download manual).
• Small bugs fixing.

Version 1.2.13

• In presentation mode, also the list of titles and todos is faded, and spell checking is automatically disabled.
• Minor graphic improvements.
• Small bugs fixing.

Version 1.2.12

• The links recognition is now suspended when the formatting is disabled, greatly improving the performance of the app with very large files.
• Small bugs fixing.

Version 1.2.11

• Added the menu item Tools - Optimize presentation (see above).
• Improved the color of the links: now the linked file has the color of the code font.

Version 1.2.10

• In the presentation mode, the text is faded and the selected paragraph is white or black, according to the theme in use, without any highlighting.
• Added new shortcut: Meta + Shift + E or Meta + Arrow up to select the previous paragraph during presentation.
• Added new shortcut: Meta + Arrow down to select the next paragraph during presentation.

Version 1.2.9

• The Edit - Show current title or todo menu item shows the title or todo item the cursor is under to at the top of the left list, after five other items if existing.
• In the presentation mode, the status bar is hidden.
• Bugs fixing: the find next function could crash the app.

Version 1.2.8

• The search in files now returns maximum 100 recurrences for each document or spreadsheet analysed, and stops at 5,000 global recurrences.
• Better arrangement of some menu items.
• Minor graphics improvements.

Version 1.2.7

• Added the shortcut Meta + Ctrl + Shift + S to sort descending the content of the current column in the current table.

Version 1.2.6

• In the options, has been added the specification of the number of characters of a document beyond which it's loaded without formatting. It's calculated by the size of the file, not counting the characters, so it could be a bit inaccurate. Formatting can be activated afterward.
• The possible hiding of the title and todo list is now restored when the app is run again.

Version 1.2.5

• The sorting functionality in the tables now sorts the numbers as such and not as letters, and the sorting stops before a possible formula in all the columns. If numeric and textual contents are both present, the numbers are shown first.
• Bugs fixing: the file search form was not working as expecting.

Version 1.2.4

• Added a list of all the available shortcuts that are not related to menu items (see The Help - Shortcuts list menu item).
• Now the width of the columns of the grid of the last four files is remembered by the app.

Version 1.2.3

• Added the button in the search form to find the previous recurrence in the document.
• Added the shortcut Meta + Shift + G to find the previous recurrence in the document in the search form.
• Improved the speed of the todo items compilation in the todo form.
• Bugs fixing: the use of the search function could crash the app.
• Bugs fixing: when the status of a todo item in the todo form is changed, now the possible red color is set properly.

Version 1.2.2

• Opening one the last four files used, now it's restored also the last selected cell.
• In presentation mode, the headings are now highlighted like the other paragraphs.
• Minor graphics improvements in presentation mode.
• Bugs fixing: in some circumstances, the content of the grid could not be saved.

Version 1.2.1

• Bugs fixing: the Meta + V shortcut in the grid didn't set it as modified.
• Bugs fixing: a value pasted with the Meta + V shortcut in the grid was not considered by a possible function.
• Bugs fixing: the shortcuts Meta + C, Meta + X, Meta + V and Meta + A in the fields of the search form didn't work as expected.

Version 1.2.0

• Added files search. See above the Files management title for information.
• Moving the mouse over the label of the file path and name, at the bottom left, now shows a hint with the complete content, even if in the label it's truncated due to its length.
• Minor graphic improvements.
• Bugs fixing: when the path of the file was very long, the date and time label on the right was overwritten.

Version 1.1.14

• In presentation mode, the cursor is now hidden, and the selected paragraph is shown at the middle of the screen.
• In light mode, the default font color of code, links, etc. is now more readable.
• Bugs fixing: sometimes, the look of the document was not updated properly.
• Bugs fixing: on opening one of the last four files, the last position of the cursor was not always properly recovered.

Version 1.1.13

• The grid has now 10000 rows and 105 columns.
• The Insert link to file menu item now allows to select and insert more files, and to include them in the text within the proper Markdown markers.
• Added shortcut Meta + Opt + . to transform a list with dashes (-) into a numbered list.
• Added shortcut Meta + Ctrl + . to transform a numbered list into a with dashes (-).
• Bugs fixing: pressing Return in an empty item of a list delete this item only if it’s followed by an empty paragraph.
• Bugs fixing: on opening one of the last four files, the last position of the cursor was not always properly recovered.

Version 1.1.12

• Bugs fixing: it was not possible to format in bold or italics the selected text if starting at the beginning of a new paragraph.
• Bugs fixing: the possible Markdown markers within Markdown links was not properly shown.

Version 1.1.11

• Added new functions in the tables grid beyond sum: max, min, avg, count. Now they are shown in the color set by the user for the code.
• Added a sorting radio item in the Words recurrence form.
• Bugs fixing in the Words recurrence form.
• Bugs fixing in the tables grid.

Version 1.1.10

• Added the Show words recurrence form menu item and functionality (see above for information).
• In the grid, the Return key pressed in a cell at the left end of a table doesn’t select the following cell at its right but the first cell of the following row, in the second column.

Version 1.1.9

• Citations now have a lighter or darker background, while having the same font size.
• Bugs fixing: the formatting within the citations was not effective.
• Minor bugs fixing.

Version 1.1.8

• New shortcut in the grid Meta + Opt + Shift + I to add a new column in the current table.
• New shortcut in the grid Meta + Opt + Shift + Backspace to delete the current column in the current table.
• The shortcut in the grid Meta + Arrow right now moves to the last edited column of the current row.
• The shortcut in the grid Meta + Arrow down now moves to the last edited row of the current column, if the selection is not in the first column.
• Bugs fixing: Backspace erased the whole content of the current cell even when the editor was active.
• Minor graphic improvements.

Version 1.1.7

• The procedure of the menu item Edit - Show duplicate words now requires no confirmation.
• Minor bugs fixing and graphic improvements.

Version 1.1.6

• Backspace deletes the content of the selected cells after confirmation.
• The procedure to check possible repeated words in the current paragraph and the previous one is now much faster.
• Bugs fixing: the procedure to check possible repeated words in the current paragraph and the previous one didn’t work always as expected.

Version 1.1.5

• When a .cvs file is loaded, the grid is not shown automatically, but in the status bar at the bottom, after the name of the file, a sign of a diamond is shown to alert the user that there are some data inside it.
• Added the possibility to show the sum of a column of numbers in the grid.
• Bugs fixing: when the grid was modified in a new file without a name, it was possible to exit the app without being asked to save the file.

Version 1.1.4

• Bugs fixing: it was not possible to search for a table name in the grid.
• Bugs fixing: in some circumstances, the last line of the text was not properly updated.

Version 1.1.3

• Bugs fixing: when a new Markdown file was created, a grid file was created as well even if there were no data inside it.