Markdown Navigator is an NVDA add-on designed to enhance the experience of editing and reading Markdown content. It allows you to use single-key navigation features, similar to NVDA's Browse Mode, within editable text areas (such as Notepad, VS Code, web-based editors, etc.).
It enables you to quickly jump to headings, lists, tables, code blocks, and various inline formatting without frequently pressing the arrow keys.
- Efficient Navigation: Implements fast algorithms that allow for instant jumping even in large documents with tens of thousands of lines.
- Structured Browsing: Supports navigation by headings, lists, tables, blockquotes, code blocks, and more.
- Inline Elements: Supports jumping to bold, italic, links, images, and inline code.
- Table Cell Navigation: Provides shortcuts consistent with NVDA for moving between cells in Markdown tables.
By default, single-key navigation is disabled. You need to manually enable Markdown Browse Mode.
- Shortcut:
NVDA + Shift + Space(Spacebar) - Effect: Turns the add-on's functionality on or off. NVDA will announce "Markdown Browse Mode On/Off". This feature also follows NVDA's "Audio indications for focus and browse modes" setting in the Browse Mode settings.
Once the mode is enabled, you can use the following single-letter keys.
- Press the Letter Key to jump to the next element.
- Press Shift + Letter Key to jump to the previous element.
| Key | Element Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| H | Heading | Any level heading (# to ######) |
| 1-6 | Heading 1-6 | Specific heading level |
| T | Table | Start of a table |
| L | List | Start of a list block |
| I | List Item | Specific list item (-, *, 1.) |
| Q | Blockquote | Quote block (>) |
| C | Code | Code block (```) or inline code (`) |
| S | Separator | Horizontal rule (---, ***) |
| X | Checkbox | Task list item (- [ ], - [x]) |
| K | Link | Markdown link [text](url) |
| G | Graphic | Image tag  |
| B | Bold | Bold text (** or __) |
| E | Emphasis | Italic/Emphasis text (* or _) |
| D | Delete | Strikethrough text (~~) |
| F | Footnote | Footnote reference [^1] |
| , | End of Block | Jump to the end of the current block element |
| Shift+, | Start of Block | Jump to the start of the current block element |
When the cursor is inside a Markdown table and Browse Mode is enabled, you can use the following shortcuts to move between cells:
- Ctrl + Alt + Left Arrow: Previous cell
- Ctrl + Alt + Right Arrow: Next cell
- Ctrl + Alt + Up Arrow: Cell above
- Ctrl + Alt + Down Arrow: Cell below
- This add-on is specifically developed for Markdown editing scenarios. If you are reading an HTML page rendered by a browser, please use NVDA's built-in Browse Mode.
- If pressing the keys above types characters instead of navigating, please check if you have enabled Browse Mode by pressing
NVDA + Shift + Space. - In VS Code, due to the editor rendering content on demand (virtualization), this add-on's browse mode may not work as expected for content that is not currently visible/rendered.
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