How to Read & Render Markdown in the Terminal: 3 Tools That Beat cat

To read Markdown nicely in the terminal, reach for glow (true rendering), bat (syntax-highlighted source), or pandoc piped to a terminal browser (universal conversion). Each beats plain cat for a different reason. Here's when to use which, with exact install and usage commands.

Run cat README.md and you get the raw file: literal # and ## markers, * emphasis characters, backtick fences, and text link syntax, all dumped as plain text with no formatting. cat never interprets Markdown — it just shows the source. The 2026 r/commandline thread around catmd (a small "cat, but for Markdown" experiment) captured the itch perfectly. But before you adopt a brand-new tool, three well-established options already solve this. Following the rule of three, here they are.

1. glow — the purpose-built renderer

glow by Charm is a terminal Markdown reader that actually renders your file: styled headings, formatted lists and blockquotes, aligned tables, and syntax-highlighted code blocks. It's the closest thing to a browser preview without leaving the shell.

Install:

# macOS / Linux (Homebrew)
brew install glow

# Windows
winget install charmbracelet.glow

# Any platform with Go
go install github.com/charmbracelet/glow/v2@latest

On Debian/Ubuntu, glow isn't in the default repositories — you add Charm's apt repo first, then sudo apt install glow.

Use it:

glow README.md        # render a file
glow -p README.md     # render in a scrollable pager
glow .                # interactive file browser (TUI)

Pros: genuine rendering, an interactive TUI with less-like navigation, and auto-detection of your terminal's light/dark background. Cons: it's a read-only viewer (no editing) and the styling is opinionated rather than pixel-faithful to GitHub. MIT-licensed and widely adopted (~26k GitHub stars).

2. bat — a cat clone that highlights

bat is "cat with wings": a drop-in replacement that adds syntax highlighting, line numbers, a file header, Git change markers, and automatic paging.

One important distinction: bat does not render Markdown — it syntax-highlights the source. You still see the #, , and backtick characters; they're just colorized and themed. That makes bat the honest middle ground — far more readable than cat, but it shows pretty source*, not a rendered document.

Install:

# macOS / Linux (Homebrew)
brew install bat

# Debian / Ubuntu (binary is named batcat)
sudo apt install bat

# Windows
winget install sharkdp.bat

On Debian/Ubuntu the binary is installed as batcat (a naming conflict), so most people add alias bat='batcat' to their shell config.

Use it:

bat README.md

Pros: highlighting for 170+ languages, Git integration, and a great cat replacement overall. Cons: no actual Markdown rendering, and themes look best in a truecolor terminal. Dual-licensed Apache-2.0/MIT and extremely popular (~59k stars).

3. pandoc + a terminal browser — the universal converter

pandoc converts Markdown to HTML, which you then pipe into a text-mode browser like w3m or lynx that lays out the HTML as formatted terminal text. This is the power-user route: real rendering using decades-stable Unix tools.

Install (you need both pieces):

# pandoc
brew install pandoc            # or: sudo apt install pandoc

# a terminal browser
brew install w3m               # or: sudo apt install w3m

Use it:

pandoc README.md | w3m -T text/html
# or with lynx:
pandoc README.md | lynx -stdin

Pros: true document rendering and enormous flexibility — the same pandoc also converts Markdown to PDF, DOCX, LaTeX, and more. Cons: it's a two-tool dependency (nothing is bundled — you must install w3m or lynx separately), the pipe is verbose, and code blocks aren't highlighted by default. pandoc is GPL-licensed and the de-facto standard for document conversion.

Which one should you use?

Start with glow for everyday reading, keep bat as your cat upgrade, and pull out pandoc when you need conversion power.

When the terminal isn't enough: publish it

Rendering Markdown locally is perfect for you. But the moment you need to share that file — send it to a teammate, drop it in a ticket, or post it publicly — a terminal renderer can't help. That's where a Markdown link comes in: paste your .md into Notebin, click Create link, and you get a clean, server-rendered page anyone can open in a browser. Think of it as the cat of the web: instead of printing Markdown to your screen, it publishes it to a shareable URL.

#markdown#terminal#cli#tools