Reading
Mindle renders Markdown and PDF in the same reader window, with the same theme and the same annotation model.
Supported files
- Markdown:
.md,.markdown,.mdown,.mkdn,.mkd,.txt. - PDF: text-based PDFs only. Scanned PDFs render but cannot be annotated.
Opening a file
- Open… (⌘O) — open a local file in a new tab.
- Open URL… (⌘⇧L) — fetch a Markdown or PDF URL. PDFs are cached on disk so reopening is fast and offline.
- Open from Clipboard (⌘⇧V) — render the clipboard contents as a Markdown tab.
- Drag a file onto the Mindle window or icon.
If a file is already open, the existing tab is focused rather than duplicated.
Markdown rendering
GitHub-flavored Markdown, rendered locally — no network round-trip.
- Tables, task lists, footnotes, strikethrough.
- Syntax-highlighted code blocks.
- LaTeX math via KaTeX — inline (
$a^2 + b^2 = c^2$) and display blocks. - Mermaid diagrams. Click to expand.
- Emoji, nested lists, raw HTML.
- YAML frontmatter is shown as a syntax-highlighted code block.
- Inline images render; remote hosts are blocked by default.
PDF rendering
PDFs render in continuous scroll mode, fit to the reader width. Pinch or use ⌘+ / ⌘- to zoom. ⌘0 returns to fit-width.
Text selection, search, and annotations work the same as on Markdown.
Typography
The body is set in a serif at a comfortable size. Two controls beyond that:
- Reading width. View → Reading Width, or ⌘1 / ⌘2 / ⌘3. Three stops: narrow, medium, wide. The choice persists across files.
- Reader font. View → Reader Font. Two options: Serif (default) and OpenDyslexic. The choice persists across files.
- Font size. ⌘+ and ⌘-. Range 0.75×–1.6×. Persists per file.
- Bionic Text. View → Enable Bionic Text. Bolds the leading letters of each word as a reading aid. Off by default.
Themes
Three themes — Light, Sepia, Dark. Cycle with ⌘⇧T. The theme is per-file and persists with the rest of the tab state.
Tabs and windows
- ⌘O opens a new tab in the front window.
- ⌘N opens a new window with its own tab strip.
- ⌘W closes the active tab; if only one tab is open, it closes the window.
- Each window keeps its own tab order, theme, and font scale.
File browser
A scoped sidebar tree of every Markdown and text file in the current folder. Toggle with ⌘⇧F. The tree never escapes upward — when you open a file inside ~/notes/2026/, the browser starts at ~/notes/2026/, not at ~.
Find in document
⌘F opens the find bar. ⌘G and ⌘⇧G step between matches. Works in both Markdown and PDF tabs.
Track changes
When an external write changes the open file — vim, an agent, git pull — Mindle picks it up automatically. Small changes apply silently. Non-trivial changes render as a Word-style track-changes overlay with per-chunk accept and reject.
- Keep All Changes — ⌘⌥⏎.
- Revert All Changes — ⌘⌥⌫.
- Per-chunk controls appear inline on the overlay.
Export
- Export as PDF… (⌘P) — paginated Letter-sized PDF using the print stylesheet. Diff overlays and chrome are stripped.
- Export Annotations… (⌘⇧E) — Markdown or JSON. See Annotations.