Install

With cargo

cargo install marquee-markdown

Needs Rust 1.88 or newer — the code uses let-chains, which that release stabilized for the 2024 edition. Nothing else: syntax highlighting uses a pure-Rust regex backend on purpose, so there is no C toolchain and no system library to find.

That installs two commands: marquee-markdown and mmd, which are the same program under a shorter name.

Prebuilt

Each GitHub release carries binaries for Linux, macOS (Intel and Apple Silicon) and Windows, plus .deb and .rpm packages, with man pages and shell completions in the archives and SHA-256 checksums alongside.

# Debian and derivatives
sudo dpkg -i marquee-markdown_*_amd64.deb

# Fedora and derivatives
sudo rpm -i marquee-markdown-*.x86_64.rpm

With cargo-binstall, one command fetches the right archive and puts both binaries on your path — and the same command upgrades them later:

cargo binstall marquee-markdown

Homebrew

brew install SophanaSok/marquee/marquee-markdown

Scoop

scoop bucket add marquee https://github.com/SophanaSok/scoop-marquee
scoop install marquee-markdown

Nix

Submitted to nixpkgs and in review (NixOS/nixpkgs#558998), so nix-shell -p marquee-markdown is not a thing yet. Until it is, the derivation builds from a checkout:

nix-build -E 'with import <nixpkgs> {}; callPackage ./packaging/nix/default.nix {}'

Arch Linux

Not available, and not for want of a package. Both PKGBUILDs are written and kept current in packaging/aur/ — they build under makepkg and pass namcap — but the AUR has been closed to new accounts since 15 June 2026, after a supply-chain attack that hijacked more than a thousand packages to ship credential stealers. Package adoption is disabled too, and there is no announced date for either reopening.

So there is nowhere to publish them to. Until that changes, cargo install marquee-markdown or the prebuilt archive above are the ways in on Arch; both PKGBUILDs are ready to push the day it reopens.

From source

git clone https://github.com/SophanaSok/marquee-markdown
cd marquee-markdown
cargo install --path .

Fonts

Any monospace font works — the callout and image icons default to standard Unicode glyphs (ⓘ ✦ ‼ ⚠ ✖ ▣). If you use a Nerd Font, an [icons] block in a theme file swaps in its glyphs; see Themes.

Staying up to date

The reader checks crates.io for a newer release at most once a day, from a detached background thread that never delays startup, rendering, or exit. When one exists, the last line on the way out says so and names the upgrade command. It stays quiet in scripts and builds: the notice only appears when standard error is a terminal, and never when CI is set. Turn it off for good with update-check = false in the configuration file, or MARQUEE_UPDATE_CHECK=0 in the environment.