Markdown that
can think.
Diagrams, math, charts, and live calculations, right inside your notes — and every one of them is still plain .md when you close the file. No proprietary blocks, no lock-in, no export you have to babysit.
A page that holds
more than words
Type / to drop any of these into the flow of your document. They render natively — no card chrome, no edit-and-preview toggle.
Callouts
GitHub-style alerts — note, tip, important, warning, and caution — with a tinted body and accent rail. Change the kind from a keyboard-driven menu.
Mermaid diagrams
Flowcharts, sequence diagrams, and more from a fenced ```mermaid block. The text is the source; the diagram renders live as you type.
Charts
Drop a Vega-Lite JSON spec into a ```chart block and get a clean SVG chart, redrawn as the spec changes — no screenshots to keep in sync.
Live calc
A Cali-style worksheet: variables, units, currencies, and percentages with a results column that recomputes on every keystroke.
Math
Beautiful KaTeX typesetting for display equations with $$…$$ and inline formulas with $…$, rendered as you write.
Tables with formulas
Real spreadsheet cells with =SUM, =AVG, =COUNT, ranges, and unit-aware totals. Resize, reorder, and summarize columns inline.
Toggles & columns
Collapse detail behind a toggle or split a page into multiple columns for side-by-side layouts, all in the flow of the document.
Embeds
Attach any file, embed YouTube and Vimeo or local video and audio, and drop in inline emoji, @mentions, dates, and colored text.
Bookmarks
Paste a URL and get a link-preview card built from the page’s OpenGraph data — title, description, and thumbnail in one tidy block.
# Q3 travel budget
budget = $5,000
flights = $3,200
hotels = $1,150
remaining = budget - flights - hotels
spent = flights + hotels
used = spent / budget as %Numbers that
keep themselves honest
- Named variables & references
- Units and currency conversion
- Percentages and running totals
The area of a circle is $A = \pi r^2$.
A Gaussian integral, for the record:
$$
\int_{-\infty}^{\infty} e^{-x^2}\,dx = \sqrt{\pi}
$$Equations, set
the way they should be
- Display and inline math
- Rendered live with KaTeX
- Editable OMML on Word export
Bring the rest of
the world in
Files, media, and links become first-class blocks — kept next to the writing they support.
File attachments
Keep a PDF, spreadsheet, or asset with the note it belongs to. Open or reveal it in Finder straight from the chip in your document.
Media
A responsive, privacy-friendly player for YouTube and Vimeo, plus native playback for local video and audio files you drop in.
Bookmarks
Rich link previews from OpenGraph metadata, fetched natively so a bare URL becomes a card without leaking a request until you ask.
Every block
round-trips to .md
The source you can read in any editor is the source of truth. Ampersand renders it live, then writes it back to standard markdown — so a smart block is never a trap you can’t get your content out of.
- Fenced code blocks, one per language
- Display and inline math with $$ and $
- GitHub-style alerts for callouts
- GFM tables, with formulas as cell text
- Small documented HTML for toggles & columns
- Standard image, link, and embed syntax
Good to know
How are smart blocks stored on disk?
As plain markdown. A diagram is a fenced ```mermaid block, a chart is a ```chart block, math is $$…$$, a callout is a GitHub-style alert, and a table formula is just the cell’s text (=SUM(B2:B4)). The source is the single saved form — previews and results are recomputed when the file opens.
Will my document break in another markdown editor?
No. Everything round-trips to standard markdown, and Ampersand uses only small, documented HTML extensions where markdown has no native syntax — toggles, columns, and colored text. A plain-markdown reader still sees your content, just without the live rendering.
Which diagram and chart syntaxes are supported?
Diagrams use Mermaid, so anything Mermaid draws — flowcharts, sequence, class, and state diagrams — works. Charts use the Vega-Lite JSON grammar. Math uses KaTeX (a LaTeX subset), and calculations use Ampersand’s own worksheet engine with units and currencies.
Do smart blocks survive export?
Yes. On export, mermaid, chart, and math blocks are pre-rendered to images, calc worksheets are computed, and tables resolve their formulas — so your PDF, Word, or HTML file looks exactly like the editor. In Word, math is exported as native, editable OMML.
Write the kind of note
a plain file can’t hold.
Smart blocks are part of the free editor. Download Ampersand and drop your first diagram or worksheet in about two minutes.
Free to start · macOS 13+ · No account required