nvim-glow

Neovim plugin to preview Markdown files using glow — a stylish terminal-based Markdown renderer.

Requirements

• Neovim >= 0.7 (tested up to 0.12/nightly)
• glow installed and available in $PATH

How It Works

The plugin runs glow inside a :terminal buffer, so ANSI colors and styles render natively. The -w flag is passed with the actual window width, so the output always fits without wrapping. After glow finishes rendering, the buffer switches to normal mode — you can scroll up and down with j/k, <C-d>, <C-u>, etc.

Choose between a floating window (default) or a vertical split on the right. Works with unsaved buffers too.

Installation

lazy.nvim

{
"shcode/nvim-glow",
cmd="Glow",
opts= {},
config=function(_, opts)
require("glow").setup(opts)
end,
}

packer.nvim

use {
"shcode/nvim-glow",
config=function()
require("glow").setup({})
end
}

Usage

Open a Markdown file and run:

:Glow

Or preview a specific file:

:Glow path/to/file.md

Keymaps in Preview Window

Key	Action
q	Close preview
<Esc>	Close preview
<C-c>	Close preview

Preview also auto-closes when you leave the buffer.

Scrolling

After glow renders, the preview window is in normal mode. Use any vim motion to scroll:

• j/k — line by line
• <C-d>/<C-u> — half page
• gg/G — top/bottom

Configuration

require("glow").setup({
glow_path="", -- Auto-detected from $PATH; override if neededwidth=120, -- Window width in characters (also passed to glow -w)height_ratio=0.8, -- Max window height as ratio of screen (float only)border="rounded", -- Border style (float only)position="float", -- "float" or "right" (vertical split)pager=false, -- Enable pager mode (-p flag)style="dark", -- Color style: "dark", "light", "notty"
})

Commands

Command	Description
:Glow [file]	Preview current or given Markdown file
:GlowSetup <json>	Update config at runtime (JSON string)

License

MIT