Markdown Editor Desktop App with Live Preview

Engineering students write an enormous amount of Markdown-shaped text — project reports, synopses, weekly logs, viva notes, README files — usually in a plain text editor with no idea how the rendered document will look, or in a heavyweight word processor that fights them on formatting. Markdown hits the sweet spot: plain-text source that plays well with version control, with clean rendered output. This project builds a desktop editor around that workflow. The source pane offers syntax highlighting and a toolbar that inserts bold, headings, lists, code blocks, quotes, tables and images at the cursor. The preview pane re-renders on every keystroke through a Markdown-to-AST-to-HTML pipeline. The snippet library stores reusable report templates, and the export module turns the same document into PDF, single-file HTML or DOCX without leaving the app.

1. The user opens a document folder; the sidebar lists every Markdown file with its size.
2. Editing happens in the source pane with syntax highlighting; the preview pane re-renders the HTML on each keystroke (debounced).
3. The toolbar inserts markup at the cursor — select text and hit Bold, or click Table to drop in a template.
4. Snippets insert full report or table skeletons for repeated structures like weekly logs.
5. The status bar tracks word and character counts against report requirements, with save state always visible.
6. When the document is done, one click exports it to PDF, standalone HTML or DOCX for submission.

Tech stack:

• Electron or Tauri desktop shell (web technologies)
• Markdown parser (AST-based) with HTML sanitizer
• Syntax-highlighted code editor component
• Headless PDF rendering engine
• DOCX generation library
• CSS print stylesheets for PDF output

• [Live preview] The rendered preview updates as you type through a debounced Markdown-to-HTML pipeline, so the document always shows its true final form.
• [File sidebar] Manage a folder of documents — project-report.md, synopsis.md, weekly-log.md — with one-click switching and file sizes at a glance.
• [Formatting toolbar] Bold, italic, headings, lists, code, quote, table and image buttons insert correct markup at the cursor or around the selection.
• [Snippet library] One-click insertion of report templates, table skeletons and code blocks for repeated document structures.
• [Triple export] One-click export to print-ready PDF, standalone HTML with embedded CSS, and editable DOCX for university templates.
• [Syntax highlighting] The source pane highlights headings, emphasis, lists and code distinctly from body text for scannable editing.
• [Live word counts] The status bar shows word and character counts plus save state — useful for report length requirements.
• [Plain .md files] Documents are ordinary Markdown files on disk, so the whole folder works with git and any other editor.

• Complete desktop app source code (editor, preview pipeline, export module)
• Parser-pipeline documentation (source to AST to HTML/DOCX/PDF)
• Snippet library with report, table and code templates
• Sample documents (project report, synopsis, weekly log) for demonstration
• Setup guide (install, build, export configuration)
• Project report PDF (background, parsing pipeline, methodology)
• PPT presentation for final review
• Viva Q&A preparation document (parsing, ASTs, desktop app architecture)

• Export fidelity depends on the complexity of the Markdown used; deeply nested custom HTML may render differently across PDF and DOCX.
• PDF export renders through a print stylesheet — pixel-perfect parity with the on-screen preview is a design target, not guaranteed for every construct.
• Very large documents (tens of thousands of lines) can make live preview re-renders perceptible despite debouncing.
• DOCX export maps standard Markdown constructs; university templates with exotic styles may need manual touch-up after export.
• There is no real-time collaboration; the editor is single-user and file-based.