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Add to SafariWhen comparing Haroopad vs MacDown, the Slant community recommends MacDown for most people. In the question“What are the best Markdown editors for OS X?” MacDown is ranked 5th while Haroopad is ranked 7th. The most important reason people chose MacDown is:
MacDown is a free and open source editor influenced by [Mou](http://25.io/mou/). It's released under the MIT license.
Specs
Question Ranking
Pros
Pro Very customizable
Haroopad has multiple available themes to choose from and new ones can be easily built with CSS.
Pro Multiplatform support
Runs on Mac, Windows and Linux with 32-bit and 64-bit binary packages available.
Pro Completely free
Haroopad is a free and open source Markdown Editor.
Pro Various publishing and export options
Haroopad can publish to Wordpress, Evernote, Tumblr and MediaWiki and export to EPub, ReStructured Text, RTF and PDF.
Pro Mathematical expressions support
Haroopad supports mathematical expressions through LaTeX and MathJax.
Pro Supports MathJax
Mathematical equations can be exported to the browser by using MathJax, a JavaScript display engine with a lot of great features such as typography support and modular output.
Pro Allows embedding content from a wide variety of sources
Content from YouTube, Twitter, Vimeo, Slideshare, Flickr, Instagram, Soundcloud, Wikipedia and Pastebin can be embedded in the document.
Pro The Markdown flavor can be extended
Haroopad supports GitHub Markdown flavor out of the box. But the functionality can be extended to support additional Markdown features.
Pro Vi key bindings
For people used ti vi/vim, Haroopad can be set up to be used with vi keybindings.
Pro Dual License
GPL3 license is applied to the current version and will be applied in the future to meet the internal dual licensing scheme.
Commercial use follows Apache license v2 (APLv2) for keeping the GPL license and non-commercial use under consideration.
Pro Free and open source
MacDown is a free and open source editor influenced by Mou. It's released under the MIT license.
Pro Real-time split-screen preview
MacDown's main view is split into two panels. The user types on the left and the Markdown is rendered on the fly in the right panel. This helps users to better understand the way they are formatting their document.
Pro Markdown previews can be customized with CSS
You can use a CSS file to customize the rendered output and the file preview you are working on will display the rendered Markdown with the custom CSS styling on top.
Pro Supports syntax highlighting in fenced code blocks
MacDown has syntax highlighting support for various languages when writing code in fenced code blocks.
Pro Good auto-completion
MacDown has a good built-in auto-completion engine for Markdown symbols.
Pro Support for GFM
Pro Ideal for day-to-day programmers' work and MarkDown novices alike
Using MacDown for the notorious README.md use case gets you going without reading any manual or requiring any configuration values. Think of it as a sort of TextEdit for MarkDown files. Thus its shortcomings - neither powerful nor versatile - turn out to be a PRO for novices trying to jump on the MarkDown bandwagon. Open its help and you'll immediately find yourself editing the MacDown's MarkDown help file, a MarkDown primer with some MacDown menus and configuration added.
Pro Linking between pages
Unlike a few other editors, MacDown lets you link between markdown pages.
Pro Tool bar with most used markdown shortcuts
This is especially useful for Markdown novices
Cons
Con English translation is iffy
The software was initially developed in Korean for Korean users and later translated and ported to English. The translation to English has not been perfect and there may be some weird expressions and grammatical errors along the way.
Con Documentation is in Korean
The official documentation is in Korean, so it may be a bit hard for non-Korean speakers to find their way around Haroopad.
Con Windows installer does not support easy admin installation
It can't request the necessary privileges to install to C:\Program Files.
Con Undo sometimes loses control about the selection
Select some text, select a formatting in the Markdown Syntax Helper view, undo.
Con Code pane is dark in default theme
Can be hard to read and a bit hard to find where to change it.
Con Not very versatile
MacDown is not very powerful or versatile. It's not customizable or extendable. This is what makes it so simple, but it's not for people who want more from their tools.
Con Frequently fails to update the display and/or flat out hangs
Must often restart MacDown.
Con The Markdown preview is rather heavy on the CPU
The Markdown preview needs a lot of resources to keep rendering on-the-fly after each keystroke. A single keystroke in the editor panel may trigger up to 5 seconds of max-CPU usage.
