Make Markdown Easier to Read as Plaintext

Install with pip install readmd

Example - take this file:

A markdown file
===

1. This file is awesome
1. It has contents
1. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, vestibulum nulla nunc, enim pellentesque tempor, pretium proin in ligula, ac in. Suspendisse praesent pellentesque dis mollis maecenas, mattis vehicula. Morbi vestibulum morbi. Proin et facilisis aliquam lectus lorem, rutrum phasellus, duis semper sodales venenatis diam ad, sodales wisi wisi eget. Lobortis nonummy, blandit lectus elit egestas, id ut nullam, parturient minus lobortis.

> how cool?
>
>
> so cool.

and convert it with this command readmd file.md to:

A markdown file
===============

1.  This file is awesome
2.  It has contents
3.  Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, vestibulum nulla nunc, enim pellentesque tempor,
    pretium proin in ligula, ac in. Suspendisse praesent pellentesque dis mollis
    maecenas, mattis vehicula. Morbi vestibulum morbi. Proin et facilisis
    aliquam lectus lorem, rutrum phasellus, duis semper sodales venenatis diam
    ad, sodales wisi wisi eget. Lobortis nonummy, blandit lectus elit egestas,
    id ut nullam, parturient minus lobortis.

> how cool?
>
> so cool.

Furthermore, if you do not specify a width parameter, it will just default to the width of your current screen.

Use Cases

This script can be used to:

• Easily read any markdown file in your terminal
• Pretty-print your github README.md file for other peoples' pleasure

Command-line Usage

Read a README.md file from a github project (in your current directory) in your terminal:

readmd | less

Convert your own readme into a pretty-printed one width of 60 characters:

readmd --width 60 README.md README.md.new
mv README.md{.new,}

Read something from standard in and save it as a file:

cat some-file.md | readmd - some-pretty-file.md

Details

• Command-line Usage: readmd [-w width] [input_file [output_file]]
• Defaults to trying README.md if no file is specified
• Defaults to width of 80 characters if not specified
• Specify a width of -1 to have the script bypass text wrapping
• Specify a width of 0 to have the character width match the current console
• Pretty-prints markdown that will generate the same markup as the original markdown
• Handles all special elements in markdown (headers, lists, block quote, code blocks, horizontal rules)
• Formats sub-elements, e.g., a list within a blockquote
• Converts numbers in ordered lists to properly ascend from one
• Idempotent

---

TODO

• add a simple way to configure stylistic preferences (or even add support for new elements)?
• figure out if hr's should expand or not
• figure out if sub-lists without extra line-break should be kept as sub-lists