Working with Markdown files in Visual Studio Code is simple, straightforward, and fun. Besides VS Code's basic editing, there are a number of Markdown specific features that will help you be more productive.
Visual Studio Code doesn't have a built-in method for launching HTML and other files in Google Chrome, but you can configure it to do so. Get the open in browser Extension The free open in browser extension works well. After installing it, restart Visual Studio Code and then right-click on any HTML page. Answered 7 months ago Author has 54 answers and 9.7K answer views You don’t run HTML: it’s not a programming language. The.html file you created can be opened in the browser. Just go to file explorer/finder and just double-click on the file; it ‘ll automatically open in the browser.
Markdown extensions
In addition to the functionality VS Code provides out of the box, you can install an extension for greater functionality.
Tip: Click on an extension tile above to read the description and reviews to decide which extension is best for you. See more in the Marketplace.
Markdown preview
VS Code supports Markdown files out of the box. You just start writing Markdown text, save the file with the .md extension and then you can toggle the visualization of the editor between the code and the preview of the Markdown file; obviously, you can also open an existing Markdown file and start working with it. To switch between views, press ⇧⌘V (Windows, Linux Ctrl+Shift+V) in the editor. You can view the preview side-by-side (⌘K V (Windows, Linux Ctrl+K V)) with the file you are editing and see changes reflected in real-time as you edit.
Here is an example with a very simple file.
Tip: You can also right-click on the editor Tab and select Open Preview (⇧⌘V (Windows, Linux Ctrl+Shift+V)) or use the Command Palette (⇧⌘P (Windows, Linux Ctrl+Shift+P)) to run the Markdown: Open Preview to the Side command (⌘K V (Windows, Linux Ctrl+K V)).
Dynamic previews and preview locking
By default, Markdown previews automatically update to preview the currently active Markdown file:
You can lock a Markdown preview using the Markdown: Toggle Preview Locking command to keep it locked to its current Markdown document. Locked previews are indicated by [Preview] in the title:
Editor and preview synchronization
VS Code automatically synchronizes the Markdown editor and the preview panes. Scroll the Markdown preview and the editor is scrolled to match the preview's viewport. Scroll the Markdown editor and the preview is scrolled to match its viewport:
You can disable scroll synchronization using the markdown.preview.scrollPreviewWithEditor
and markdown.preview.scrollEditorWithPreview
settings.
The currently selected line in the editor is indicated in the Markdown preview by a light gray bar in the left margin:
Additionally, double clicking an element in the Markdown preview will automatically open the editor for the file and scroll to the line nearest the clicked element.
Outline view
The Outline view is a separate section in the bottom of the File Explorer. When expanded, it will show the symbol tree of the currently active editor. For Markdown files, the symbol tree is the Markdown file's header hierarchy.
The Outline view is a great way to review your document's header structure and outline.
Extending the Markdown preview
Extensions can contribute custom styles and scripts to the Markdown preview to change its appearance and add new functionality. Here's a set of example extensions that customize the preview:
Using your own CSS
You can also use your own CSS in the Markdown preview with the 'markdown.styles': []
setting. This lists URLs for style sheets to load in the Markdown preview. These stylesheets can either be https
URLs, or relative paths to local files in the current workspace.
For example, to load a stylesheet called Style.css
at the root of your current workspace, use File > Preferences > Settings to bring up the workspace settings.json
file and make this update:
Keep trailing whitespace in order to create line breaks
To create hard line breaks, Markdown requires two or more spaces at the end of a line. Depending on your user or workspace settings, VS Code may be configured to remove trailing whitespace. In order to keep trailing whitespace in Markdown files only, you can add these lines to your settings.json
:
Markdown preview security
For security reasons, VS Code restricts the content displayed in the Markdown preview. This includes disabling script execution and only allowing resources to be loaded over https
.
When the Markdown preview blocks content on a page, an alert popup is shown in the top right corner of the preview window:
You can change what content is allowed in the Markdown preview by clicking on this popup or running the Markdown: Change preview security settings command in any Markdown file:
The Markdown preview security settings apply to all files in the workspace.
Here are the details about each of these security levels:
Strict
This is the default setting. Only loads trusted content and disables script execution. Blocks http
images.
It is strongly recommended that you keep Strict
security enabled unless you have a very good reason to change it AND you trust all markdown files in the workspace.
Allow insecure content
Keeps scripts disabled but allows content to be loaded over http
.
Disable
Disables additional security in the preview window. This allows script execution and also allows content to be loaded over http
.
Snippets for Markdown
There are several built-in Markdown snippets included in VS Code - press ⌃Space (Windows, Linux Ctrl+Space) (Trigger Suggest) and you get a context specific list of suggestions.
Tip: You can add in your own User Defined Snippets for Markdown. Take a look at User Defined Snippets to find out how.
Compiling Markdown into HTML
VS Code integrates with Markdown compilers through the integrated task runner. We can use this to compile .md
files into .html
files. Let's walk through compiling a simple Markdown document.
Step 1: Install a Markdown compiler
For this walkthrough, we use the popular Node.js module, markdown-it.
Note: There are many Markdown compilers to choose from beyond markdown-it. Pick the one that best suits your needs and environment.
Step 2: Create a simple MD file
Open VS Code on an empty folder and create a sample.md
file.
Note: You can open a folder with VS Code by either selecting the folder with File > Open Folder or navigating to the folder and typing 'code .' at the command line.
Place the following source code in that file:
Step 3: Create tasks.json
The next step is to set up the task configuration file tasks.json
. To do this, run Terminal > Configure Tasks and click Create tasks.json file from templates. VS Code then presents a list of possible tasks.json
templates to choose from. Select Others since we want to run an external command.
This generates a tasks.json
file in your workspace .vscode
folder with the following content:
To use markdown-it to compile the Markdown file, change the contents as follows:
Tip: While the sample is there to help with common configuration settings, IntelliSense is available for the tasks.json
file as well to help you along. Use ⌃Space (Windows, Linux Ctrl+Space) to see the available settings.
Step 4: Run the Build Task
Since in more complex environments there can be more than one build task we prompt you to pick the task to execute after pressing ⇧⌘B (Windows, Linux Ctrl+Shift+B) (Run Build Task). In addition, we allow you to scan the output for compile problems. Since we only want to convert the Markdown file to HTML select Never scan the build output from the presented list.
At this point, you should see an additional file show up in the file list sample.html
.
If you want to make the Compile Markdown task the default build task to run execute Configure Default Build Task from the global Terminal menu and select Compile Markdown from the presented list. The final tasks.json
file will then look like this:
Automating Markdown compilation
Let's take things a little further and automate Markdown compilation with VS Code. We can do so with the same task runner integration as before, but with a few modifications.
Step 1: Install Gulp and some plug-ins
We use Gulp to create a task that automates Markdown compilation. We also use the gulp-markdown plug-in to make things a little easier.
Run Html From Visual Studio Code
We need to install gulp both globally (-g
switch) and locally:
Note: gulp-markdown-it is a Gulp plug-in for the markdown-it module we were using before. There are many other Gulp Markdown plug-ins you can use, as well as plug-ins for Grunt.
You can test that your gulp installation was successful by typing gulp -v
. You should see a version displayed for both the global (CLI) and local installations.
Step 2: Create a simple Gulp task
Open VS Code on the same folder from before (contains sample.md
and tasks.json
under the .vscode
folder), and create gulpfile.js
at the root.
Place the following source code in that file:
What is happening here?
Can Visual Studio Code Run Html
- We are watching for changes to any Markdown file in our workspace, i.e. the current folder open in VS Code.
- We take the set of Markdown files that have changed, and run them through our Markdown compiler, i.e.
gulp-markdown-it
. - We now have a set of HTML files, each named respectively after their original Markdown file. We then put these files in the same directory.
Step 3: Run the gulp default Task
To complete the tasks integration with VS Code, we will need to modify the task configuration from before to run the default Gulp task we just created. You can either delete the tasks.json
file or empty it only keeping the 'version': '2.0.0'
property. Now execute Run Task from the global Terminal menu. Observe that you are presented with a picker listing the tasks defined in the gulp file. Select gulp: default to start the task. We allow you to scan the output for compile problems. Since we only want to convert the Markdown file to HTML select Never scan the build output from the presented list. At this point, if you create and/or modify other Markdown files, you see the respective HTML files generated and/or changes reflected on save. You can also enable Auto Save to make things even more streamlined.
If you want to make the gulp: default task the default build task executed when pressing ⇧⌘B (Windows, Linux Ctrl+Shift+B) run Configure Default Build Task from the global Terminal menu and select gulp: default from the presented list. The final tasks.json
file will then look like this:
Step 4: Terminate the gulp default Task
The gulp: default task runs in the background and watches for file changes to Markdown files. If you want to stop the task, you can use the Terminate Task from the global Terminal menu.
Next steps
Read on to find out about:
- CSS, SCSS, and Less - Want to edit your CSS? VS Code has great support for CSS, SCSS, and Less editing.
Common questions
Is there spell checking?
Not installed with VS Code but there are spell checking extensions. Check the VS Code Marketplace to look for useful extensions to help with your workflow.
Does VS Code support GitHub Flavored Markdown?
No, VS Code targets the CommonMark Markdown specification using the markdown-it library. GitHub is moving toward the CommonMark specification which you can read about in this update.
In the walkthrough above, I didn't find the Configure Task command in the Command Palette?
You may have opened a file in VS Code rather than a folder. You can open a folder by either selecting the folder with File > Open Folder or navigating to the folder and typing 'code .' at the command line.
Support for Emmet snippets and expansion is built right into Visual Studio Code, no extension required. Emmet 2.0 has support for the majority of the Emmet Actions including expanding Emmet abbreviations and snippets.
How to expand Emmet abbreviations and snippets
Emmet abbreviation and snippet expansions are enabled by default in html
, haml
, pug
, slim
, jsx
, xml
, xsl
, css
, scss
, sass
, less
and stylus
files, as well as any language that inherits from any of the above like handlebars
and php
.
When you start typing an Emmet abbreviation, you will see the abbreviation displayed in the suggestion list. If you have the suggestion documentation fly-out open, you will see a preview of the expansion as you type. If you are in a stylesheet file, the expanded abbreviation shows up in the suggestion list sorted among the other CSS suggestions.
Using Tab for Emmet expansions
If you want to use the Tab key for expanding the Emmet abbreviations, add the following setting:
This setting allows using the Tab key for indentation when text is not an Emmet abbreviation.
Emmet when quickSuggestions are disabled
If you have disabled the editor.quickSuggestions
setting, you won't see suggestions as you type. You can still trigger suggestions manually by pressing ⌃Space (Windows, Linux Ctrl+Space) and see the preview.
Disable Emmet in suggestions
If you don't want to see Emmet abbreviations in suggestions at all, then use the following setting:
You can still use the command Emmet: Expand Abbreviation to expand your abbreviations. You can also bind any keyboard shortcut to the command id editor.emmet.action.expandAbbreviation
as well.
Emmet suggestion ordering
To ensure Emmet suggestions are always on top in the suggestion list, add the following settings:
Emmet abbreviations in other file types
To enable the Emmet abbreviation expansion in file types where it is not available by default, use the emmet.includeLanguages
setting. Make sure to use language identifiers for both sides of the mapping, with the right side being the language identifier of an Emmet supported language (see the list above).
For example:
Emmet has no knowledge of these new languages, and so there might be Emmet suggestions showing up in non HTML/CSS contexts. To avoid this, you can use the following setting.
Note: If you used emmet.syntaxProfiles
previously to map new file types, from VS Code 1.15 onwards you should use the setting emmet.includeLanguages
instead. emmet.syntaxProfiles
is meant for customizing the final output only.
Emmet with multi-cursors
You can use most of the Emmet actions with multi-cursors as well:
Using filters
Filters are special post-processors that modify the expanded abbreviation before it is output to the editor. There are 2 ways to use filters; either globally through the emmet.syntaxProfiles
setting or directly in the current abbreviation.
Below is an example of the first approach using the emmet.syntaxProfiles
setting to apply the bem
filter for all the abbreviations in HTML files:
To provide a filter for just the current abbreviation, append the filter to your abbreviation. For example, div#page|c
will apply the comment
filter to the div#page
abbreviation.
BEM filter (bem)
If you use the Block Element Modifier (BEM) way of writing HTML, then bem
filters are very handy for you to use. To learn more about how to use bem
filters, read BEM filter in Emmet.
You can customize this filter by using the bem.elementSeparator
and bem.modifierSeparator
preferences as documented in Emmet Preferences.
Comment filter (c)
This filter adds comments around important tags. By default, 'important tags' are those tags with id and/or class attribute.
For example div>div#page>p.title+p|c
will be expanded to:
You can customize this filter by using the filter.commentTrigger
, filter.commentAfter
and filter.commentBefore
preferences as documented in Emmet Preferences.
The format for the filter.commentAfter
preference is different in VS Code Emmet 2.0.
For example, instead of:
in VS Code, you would use a simpler:
Trim filter (t)
This filter is applicable only when providing abbreviations for the Emmet: Wrap Individual Lines with Abbreviation command. It removes line markers from wrapped lines.
Using custom Emmet snippets
Custom Emmet snippets need to be defined in a json file named snippets.json
. The emmet.extensionsPath
setting should have the path to the directory containing this file.
Below is an example for the contents of this snippets.json
file.
Authoring of Custom Snippets in Emmet 2.0 via the snippets.json
file differs from the old way of doing the same in a few ways:
Topic | Old Emmet | Emmet 2.0 |
---|---|---|
Snippets vs Abbreviations | Supports both in 2 separate properties called snippets and abbreviations | The 2 have been combined into a single property called snippets. See default HTML snippets and CSS snippets |
CSS snippet names | Can contain : | Do not use : when defining snippet names. It is used to separate property name and value when Emmet tries to fuzzy match the given abbreviation to one of the snippets. |
CSS snippet values | Can end with ; | Do not add ; at end of snippet value. Emmet will add the trailing ; based on the file type (css/less/scss vs sass/stylus) or the emmet preference set for css.propertyEnd , sass.propertyEnd , stylus.propertyEnd |
Cursor location | ${cursor} or | can be used | Use only textmate syntax like ${1} for tab stops and cursor locations |
HTML Emmet snippets
HTML custom snippets are applicable to all other markup flavors like haml
or pug
. When snippet value is an abbreviation and not actual HTML, the appropriate transformations can be applied to get the right output as per the language type.
For example, for an unordered list with a list item, if your snippet value is ul>li
, you can use the same snippet in html
, haml
, pug
or slim
, but if your snippet value is <ul><li></li></ul>
, then it will work only in html
files.
If you want a snippet for plain text, then surround the text with {}
.
CSS Emmet snippets
Values for CSS Emmet snippets should be a complete property name and value pair.
CSS custom snippets are applicable to all other stylesheet flavors like scss
, less
or sass
. Therefore, don't include a trailing ;
at the end of the snippet value. Emmet will add it as needed based on whether the language requires it.
Do not use :
in the snippet name. :
is used to separate property name and value when Emmet tries to fuzzy match the abbreviation to one of the snippets.
Tab stops and cursors in custom snippets
The syntax for tab stops in custom Emmet snippets follows the Textmate snippets syntax.
- Use
${1}
,${2}
for tab stops and${1:placeholder}
for tab stops with placeholders. - Previously,
|
or${cursor}
was used to denote the cursor location in the custom Emmet snippet. This is no longer supported. Use${1}
instead.
Emmet configuration
Below are Emmet settings that you can use to customize your Emmet experience in VS Code.
emmet.includeLanguages
Use this setting to add mapping between the language of your choice and one of the Emmet supported languages to enable Emmet in the former using the syntax of the latter. Make sure to use language ids for both sides of the mapping.
For example:
emmet.excludeLanguages
If there is a language where you do not want to see Emmet expansions, add it in this setting which takes an array of language id strings.
emmet.syntaxProfiles
See Emmet Customization of output profile to learn how you can customize the output of your HTML abbreviations.
For example:
emmet.variables
Customize variables used by Emmet snippets.
For example:
emmet.showExpandedAbbreviation
Controls the Emmet suggestions that show up in the suggestion/completion list.
Setting Value Description never
Never show Emmet abbreviations in the suggestion list for any language. inMarkupAndStylesheetFilesOnly
Show Emmet suggestions only for languages that are purely markup and stylesheet based ('html', 'pug', 'slim', 'haml', 'xml', 'xsl', 'css', 'scss', 'sass', 'less', 'stylus'). always
Show Emmet suggestions in all Emmet supported modes as well as the languages that have a mapping in the emmet.includeLanguages
setting.Note: In the
always
mode, the new Emmet implementation is not context aware. For example, if you are editing a JavaScript React file, you will get Emmet suggestions not only when writing markup but also while writing JavaScript.emmet.showAbbreviationSuggestions
Shows possible emmet abbreviations as suggestions. It is
true
by default.For example, when you type
li
, you get suggestions for all emmet snippets starting withli
likelink
,link:css
,link:favicon
etc. This is helpful in learning Emmet snippets that you never knew existed unless you knew the Emmet cheatsheet by heart.Not applicable in stylesheets or when
emmet.showExpandedAbbreviation
is set tonever
.emmet.extensionsPath
Provide the location of the directory that houses the
snippets.json
file which in turn has your custom snippets.emmet.triggerExpansionOnTab
Set this to true to enable expanding Emmet abbreviations with Tab key. We use this setting to provide the appropriate fallback to provide indentation when there is no abbreviation to expand.
emmet.showSuggestionsAsSnippets
If set to
true
, then Emmet suggestions will be grouped along with other snippets allowing you to order them as pereditor.snippetSuggestions
setting. Set this totrue
andeditor.snippetSuggestions
totop
, to ensure that Emmet suggestions always show up on top among other suggestions.emmet.preferences
You can use this setting to customize Emmet as documented in Emmet Preferences. The below customizations are currently supported:
css.propertyEnd
css.valueSeparator
sass.propertyEnd
sass.valueSeparator
stylus.propertyEnd
stylus.valueSeparator
css.unitAliases
css.intUnit
css.floatUnit
bem.elementSeparator
bem.modifierSeparator
filter.commentBefore
filter.commentTrigger
filter.commentAfter
format.noIndentTags
format.forceIndentationForTags
profile.allowCompactBoolean
css.fuzzySearchMinScore
The format for the
filter.commentAfter
preference is different and simpler in Emmet 2.0.For example, instead of the older format
you would use
If you want support for any of the other preferences as documented in Emmet Preferences, please log a feature request.
Next steps
Emmet is just one of the great web developer features in VS Code. Read on to find out about:
- HTML - VS Code supports HTML with IntelliSense, closing tags, and formatting.
- CSS - We offer rich support for CSS, SCSS and Less.
Common questions
Custom tags do not get expanded in the suggestion list
Custom tags when used in an expression like MyTag>YourTag
or MyTag.someclass
do show up in the suggestion list. But when these are used on their own like MyTag
, they do not appear in the suggestion list. This is designed so to avoid noise in the suggestion list as every word is a potential custom tag.
Add the following setting to enable expanding of Emmet abbreviations using tab which will expand custom tags in all cases.
My HTML snippets ending with +
do not work?
HTML snippets ending with +
like select+
and ul+
from the Emmet cheatsheet are not supported. This is a known issue in Emmet 2.0 Issue: emmetio/html-matcher#1. Workaround is to create your own custom Emmet snippets for such scenarios.
Where can I set all the preferences as documented in Emmet preferences
You can set the preferences using the setting emmet.preferences
. Only a subset of the preferences that are documented in Emmet preferences can be customized. Please read the preferences section under Emmet configuration.
Any tips and tricks?
Of course!
- In CSS abbreviations, when you use
:
, the left part is used to fuzzy match with the CSS property name and the right part is used to match with CSS property value. Take full advantage of this by using abbreviations likepos:f
,trf:rx
,fw:b
, etc. - Use the new command Emmet: Wrap Individual Lines with Abbreviation instead of Emmet: Wrap with Abbreviation when you want each selected line to be wrapped by a repeater in the given abbreviation. For example, use
ul>li*
to wrap selected lines in an unordered list with each line as a list item. - Explore all other Emmet features as documented in Emmet Actions.
- Don't hesitate to create your own custom Emmet snippets.