Previewing Markdown files with Alfred

I use Markdown whenever I’m writing or making notes. Depending on what I’m writing, I use either Sublime Text, Byword or nvAlt as the text editor. In most cases, it’s Byword for longer pieces, nvAlt for notes and Sublime for shorter pieces.

Seeing the rendered text side-by-side is often useful too. I’ve created this Alfred workflow to help me open any Markdown file in Marked (a fantastic preview tool written by the author of nvAlt).

To use it, I open Alfred (⌘-Space) and type pmd.

then type a query to find the file I want to see:

Which means I can do split my screen and see my changes as I make them:

Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to create this workflow:

• Open Alfred Preferences and create a new workflow
• Add a File Filter input with set the keyword as pmd

• From the Finder, drag a Markdown file into the File Types box to ensure Alfred only shows Markdown files in the results

• Add an Open File action and drag in Marked.app (or whatever app you want to use) from the Applications folder

Link the input to the action and you’re done!