Bear is a macOS and iOS application designed for one thing: note taking. It’s like Evernote, but without the bloat.

There aren’t a lot of whizbang features in Bear. Instead, Bear consistently delivers on all of its promises. Tags, search, and syncing all work flawlessly. The application is intuitive, and that’s exactly what you want when you’re taking notes.

Markdown in the Bear Markdown app

Bear doesn’t automatically enable support Markdown by default, but you can enable it in the preferences. The application has a hybrid live editor and text editor — you can see both the Markdown syntax and the way the formatting changes the text. It takes a while to get used to, but it’s useful if you’re just getting started with Markdown.

Enabling Markdown Support

To enable Markdown support in Bear, open the Preferences window. On the General tab, turn on the setting for Markdown compatibility mode.

Tip: If you're using Bear on more than one device, you'll need to enable the Markdown compatibility mode setting on all of your devices.

Bear Markdown Support

Bear provides support for the following Markdown elements.

ElementSupportNotes
HeadingsPartialAlternative syntax is not supported.
ParagraphsYes
Line BreaksPartialThe Markdown syntax (trailing whitespace) is not supported, but you can press the Return key once to achieve the same result.
BoldYes
ItalicYes
BlockquotesPartialNested blockquotes are not supported.
Ordered ListsYes
Unordered ListsYes
CodeYes
Horizontal RulesYes
LinksYesYou can link to other notes by enclosing a note’s name in double brackets (i.e., [[note-name]]).
ImagesNoThe Markdown syntax is not supported, but you can drag and drop images into a note.
TablesNo
Fenced Code BlocksYes
Syntax HighlightingYes
FootnotesNo
Heading IDsPartialAutomatically generated. There’s no way to set custom heading IDs. You can copy a link to a heading by clicking the H# symbol next to the heading in the margin and selecting Copy Link to Here. See the documentation for more information.
Definition ListsNo
StrikethroughYes
Task ListsYes
Emoji (copy and paste)Yes
Emoji (shortcodes)Yes
HighlightYesUse two colons instead of equal signs (e.g., ::word or phrase::).
SubscriptNo
SuperscriptNo
Automatic URL LinkingYes
Disabling Automatic URL LinkingYes
HTMLPartialHTML is not rendered in Bear notes, but it is apparently rendered in the HTML output from exported notes.

Support for Additional Syntax Elements

As an added bonus, Bear provides support for several obscure elements.

ElementMarkdownRendered Output
Underline~word or phrase~word or phrase

See Also

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