FAQ

Where did the outline go?

The outline card and the files sidebar appear only while the document keeps 60 columns. Widen the terminal, or press o to force the outline on, which lowers the limit to 40 columns.

The colors look wrong

mido picks truecolor when COLORTERM is truecolor or 24bit, and 256 colors otherwise. Inside tmux or over SSH the variable is sometimes missing, so export it if your terminal supports truecolor. Set NO_COLOR, or pass --no-color, to turn colors off entirely.

Can I change the font?

No. The terminal owns the font. mido draws with box-drawing characters, bullets and bars from the basic Unicode blocks, and the fonts table lists what each common font covers. If yours lacks box drawing, set glyphs = "ascii" in the config. If it is a Nerd Font, glyphs = "nerd" adds icons.

Can I change the colors?

Yes. Pick one of the built-in themes with --theme or theme in the config, or write your own. mido themes lists them.

Why is my output plain when I redirect it?

Without -p, output that is not a terminal is written as plain text, so mido file.md > out.txt never leaks escape codes. Add -p to keep the styling, for example mido -p file.md | less -R.

How do I copy text?

y copies a code block on the screen, or the selected link. To select any text with the mouse, hold Shift while you drag, or Option in iTerm2, since mido uses the mouse for scrolling and links. See copying.

What about files that are not UTF-8?

A UTF-16 file with a byte order mark, as Windows tools write, reads and saves as UTF-16. A file in another encoding opens with the bytes that are not UTF-8 shown as �, and the editor will not open it, so saving cannot change bytes you never touched. A file with NUL bytes is taken for binary and refused.

Can I edit the file?

Yes. e opens it in mido's own editor, which knows enough Markdown to continue lists and toggle tasks, and Ctrl-s saves. E opens the file in $VISUAL or $EDITOR instead and reloads it when you come back.

Do images show?

Yes, when the image sits on its own line. Kitty, iTerm2 and Sixel terminals draw the real picture, and everything else gets a half-block rendering. Press i to hide them, or to see which protocol mido detected. Remote images need --remote-images.

Does it run on Windows?

mido is built on crossterm, which supports Windows terminals. It has been developed on macOS and Linux, so please report anything that looks off.

Can I read the docs offline?

Yes. mido docs opens this documentation from a copy bundled in the binary, so it works with no network and always matches the version you have installed. If the current directory has its own docs folder, that folder opens instead.

Where is the config file?

~/.config/mido/config.toml on Linux and macOS, %APPDATA%\mido\config\config.toml on Windows, and a .mido.toml in a project folder overrides it. None is needed, and Configuration lists every setting.