Build Instructions

Please see this issue for updates on our efforts to modernize this process!

Clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/marktext/marktext.git

Container Setup

The Marktext build process currently relies on an old version of node. The easiest way to build Marktext for Linux right now is from inside a container. Here are the steps for doing so:

# cd to marktext repository

# run container (you can use docker instead of podman if you like)
podman run -it -v ./:/mnt:Z node:18.19-bookworm /bin/bash
# you should now be interacting with the container

# install dependency xkbfile
apt update
apt-get install libx11-dev libxkbfile-dev libsecret-1-dev libfontconfig-dev rpm

cd /mnt
yarn install
yarn run build

exit
# container should now be terminated

# build artifacts can be found in build directory

Below are the complete build instructions, which may help you troubleshoot the above or attempt to build for other platforms.

Prerequisites

Before you can get started developing, you need set up your build environment:

• Node.js >=v16 but <v17 and yarn
• Python >=v3.6 for node-gyp
• C++ compiler and development tools
• Build is supported on Linux, macOS and Windows

Additional development dependencies on Linux:

• libX11 (with headers)
• libxkbfile (with headers)
• libsecret (with headers)
• libfontconfig (with headers)
• rpm (if building on Debian)

On Debian-based Linux: sudo apt-get install libx11-dev libxkbfile-dev libsecret-1-dev libfontconfig-dev rpm

On Red Hat-based Linux: sudo dnf install libX11-devel libxkbfile-devel libsecret-devel fontconfig-devel

On Arch Linux: sudo pacman -S libx11 libxkbfile libsecret fontconfig

Additional development dependencies on Windows:

• Windows 10 SDK (only needed before Windows 10)
• Visual Studio 2019 (preferred)

Let's build

1. Go to marktext folder
2. Install dependencies: yarn install or yarn install --frozen-lockfile
3. Build MarkText binaries and packages: yarn run build
4. MarkText binary is located under build folder

Copy the build app to applications folder, or if on Windows run the executable installer.

Important scripts

$ yarn run <script> # or npm run <script>

Script	Description
build	Build MarkText binaries and packages for your OS
build:bin	Build MarkText binary for your OS
dev	Build and run MarkText in developer mode
lint	Lint code style
test / unit	Run unit tests

For more scripts please see package.json.