Open Files from the Command Line

When you install Markdown Monster the installation folder is added to your current User path. To start Markdown Monster from the command line you can do:

markdownmonster readme.md

or simply:

mm readme.md

Multiple Files

Markdown Monster can also open multiple files by passing multiple filename parameters to the application:

mm readme.md todo.md changelog.md

Opening Folders

You can also open a folder in the FolderBrowser by specifying a folder name from the command line:

mm .
mm .\dev\MyPoject

You can combine both opening a file and folder in the FolderBrowser like this:

mm . readme.md
mm c:\temp c:\temp\SampleMarkdown.md

Path Support

Markdown Monster automatically figures out the current path and opens files referenced with relative paths as well as full paths.

All of the following work:

mm .\docs\Readme.md
mm ..\Config.md
mm c:\docs\Readme.md

Line Number

You can also specify a line number to open the document on using the -line 100 command line switch:

mm .\docs\Readme.md -line 100

Open a new Empty Document

To open an empty document pass untitled:

mm untitled

Open a new Document with Pre-filled Text

To open a new untitled document with text preset you can use one of the following syntax:

untitled.<encoding>,<encodedContent>

Encodings are:

  • base64 - base64 encoded string - recommended approach
  • urlencoded - a UrlEncoded string
  • json - single line JSON string with or without quotes
  • text - plain text - recommended only for very simple one liners

In actual shell commands this looks like this:

mm untitled.base64,IyBIZWxsbyBXb3JsZAoKSXQncyBhICoqY3J1ZWwsIGNydWVsKiogd29ybGQu
mm untitled.urlencoded,This%20is%20a%20test.
mm "untitled.text,This is a new document"
mm "untitled.json,'This is\nmulti-line content.'"

Note: If you are using text or json make sure that the entire parameter is wrapped into quotes as spaces and quotes will break the OS command line parsing. Even so you may still run into issue with " quotes inside of the text. For this reason we recommend you use base64 or urlencoded.

Open a Document with Pre-Filled Text from Base64 Data

If you need to open a new document with a large amount of multi-line text, using base64 is the preferred mechanism and there's an explicit -base64text command line parameter to do it:

mm -base64text IyBIZWxsbyBXb3JsZAoKSXQncyBhICoqY3J1ZWwsIGNydWVsKiogd29ybGQu

Other File Formats Supported

Markdown Monster also supports a ton of other file formats with Syntax Highlighting including:

csharp, html, css, javascript, typescript, xml, config, powershell, foxpro, yaml, dockerfile and many more.

For a complete list check the EditorExtensionMappings key in Tools -> Settings.

Additional Command Line Options

There are a number of additional Command Line Operations available that let you configure Markdown Monster. Please see the Command Line Operations topic for details.

See also

Command Line Operations

© West Wind Technologies, 2016-2023 • Updated: 09/18/20
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