md4qt is a static C++ library for parsing Markdown.

md4qt supports CommonMark 0.31.2 Spec, and some GitHub extensions, such as tables, footnotes, tasks lists, strikethroughs, LaTeX Maths injections, GitHub's auto-links.

This library parses Markdown into tree structure.

• Example
• License
• Benchmark
• Playground
• Release notes
• Known issues
• What should I know about links in the document?
• What is the second argument of MD::Parser::parse()?
• What is an MD::Anchor?
• Does the library throw exceptions?
• How can I convert MD::Document into HTML?
• How can I obtain positions of blocks/elements in Markdown file?
• How can I easily traverse through the MD::Document?
• Is it possible to find Markdown item by its position?
• How can I walk through the document and find all items of given type?
• How can I add and process a custom (user-defined) item in MD::Document?

Example

#include <md4qt/parser.h>

int main()
{
    MD::Parser p;

    auto doc = p.parse(QStringLiteral("your_markdown.md"));

    for (auto it = doc->items().cbegin(), last = doc->items().cend(); it != last; ++it) {
        switch ((*it)->type())
        {
        case MD::ItemType::Anchor :
        {
            auto a = static_cast<MD::Anchor *> (it->get());
            qDebug() << a->label();
        }
            break;

        default :
            break;
        }
    }

    return 0;
}

License

/*
    SPDX-FileCopyrightText: 2026 Igor Mironchik <igor.mironchik@gmail.com>
    SPDX-License-Identifier: MIT
*/

Benchmark

Approximate benchmark with cmark-gfm says, that Qt6 version of md4qt is slower ~8 times. But you will get complete C++ tree structure of the Markdown document with all major extensions and sugar and cherry on the cake.

Markdown library	Result
cmark-gfm	~0.22 ms
md4qt with Qt6	~1.7 ms
md4qt with Qt6 without GitHub auto-links extension	~1.2 ms

Playground

You can play in action with md4qt in Markdown Tools. There you can find Markdown editor/viewer/converter to PDF.

And KleverNotes from KDE uses md4qt too.

Release notes

• Note that version 5.0.0 is API incompatible with 4.x.x. Version 5.0.0 was fully refactored for better performance and be more user-friendly.

• Note that version 4.0.0 is API incompatible with 3.0.0. In version 4.0.0 were changed rules with spaces, this version fully supports CommonMark standard in this question. Methods isSpaceBefore(), isSpaceAfter() were removed, and spaces are presented as in Markdown, so keep it in mind.

Known issues

You can find a list of know issues here.

What should I know about links in the document?

• In some cases in Markdown link's URL is something document related. So, when you got a MD::Link in the document check if the labelled links of the document contains key with URL in the link, and if so, use URL from labelled links, look:

  MD::Link *item = ...;
  
  QString url = item->url();
  
  const auto it = doc->labeledLinks().find(url);
  
  if (it != doc->labeledLinks().cend()) {
      url = it.value()->url();
  }

What is the second argument of MD::Parser::parse()?

• Second argument of MD::Parser::parse() is a flag that tells the parser to process Markdown files recursively or not. If parsing is recursive then if in the targeted Markdown file exist links to other Markdown files, then they will be parsed too and will exist in the resulting document.

What is an MD::Anchor?

• As md4qt supports recursive Markdown parsing, then in the resulting document can be represented more than one Markdown file. Each file in the document starts with MD::Anchor, it just shows that during traversing through the document you reached new file.

Does the library throw exceptions?

• No. This library doesn't use exceptions. Any text is a valid Markdown, so I don't need to inform user about errors. Qt itself doesn't use exceptions either. So you can catch only standard C++ exceptions, like std::bad_alloc, for example.

How can I convert MD::Document into HTML?

• In version 2.0.5 were made commits with implementation of MD::toHtml() function. You can do the following:

  #include <md4qt/parser.h>
  #include <md4qt/html.h>
  
  int main()
  {
      MD::Parse p;
  
      auto doc = p.parse(QStringLiteral("your_markdown.md"));
  
      const auto html = MD::toHtml(doc);
  
      return 0;
  }

How can I obtain positions of blocks/elements in Markdown file?

• Done in version 2.0.5. Remember that all positions in md4qt start with 0, where first symbol on first line will have coordinates (0,0). One more important thing is that all ranges of position in md4qt are given inclusive, that mean that last column of any element will point to the last symbol in this element.

How can I easily traverse through the MD::Document?

• Since version 2.6.0 in visitor.h header implemented MD::Visitor interface with which you can easily walk through the document, all you need is implement/override virtual methods to handle that or another element in the document, like:

  /*!
   * Handle heading.
   *
   * \a h Heading.
   */
  virtual void onHeading(Heading *h) = 0;

Is it possible to find Markdown item by its position?

• Since version 3.0.0 was added new structure MD::PosCache. You can pass MD::Document into its MD::PosCache::initialize() method and find first item with all its nested first children by given position with MD::PosCache::findFirstInCache() method.

How can I walk through the document and find all items of given type?

• Since version 3.0.0 was added algorithm MD::forEach().

  /*!
   * \inheaderfile md4qt/algo.h
   *
   * \brief Calls function for each item in the document with the given type.
   *
   * \a types Vector of item's types to be processed.
   *
   * \a doc Document.
   *
   * \a func Functor object.
   *
   * \a maxNestingLevel Maximun nesting level. 0 means infinity, 1 - only top level items...
   */
  inline void forEach(
      const QVector<ItemType> &types,
      QSharedPointer<Document> doc,
      ItemFunctor func,
      unsigned int maxNestingLevel = 0);

How can I add and process a custom (user-defined) item in MD::Document?

• Since version 3.0.0 in MD::ItemType enum appeared MD::UserDefined enumerator. So you can inherit from any MD::Item class and return from type() method value greater or equal MD::ItemType::UserData. To handle user-defined types of items in MD::Visitor class now exists method void onUserDefined(MD::Item *item). So you can handle your custom items and do what you need.