How to render Markdown content in text

Paul Hudson @twostraws December 1st 2022

Updated for Xcode 14.2

New in iOS 15

SwiftUI has built-in support for rendering Markdown, including bold, italic, links, and more. It’s literally built right into SwiftUI’s Text view, so you can write code like this:

VStack {
    Text("This is regular text.")
    Text("* This is **bold** text, this is *italic* text, and this is ***bold, italic*** text.")
    Text("~~A strikethrough example~~")
    Text("`Monospaced works too`")
    Text("Visit Apple: [click here](https://apple.com)")
}

Download this as an Xcode project

Several lines of text appropriately formatted with Markdown styling.

And yes, that link is automatically tappable. Markdown links will use your app’s accent color by default, but you can change that using the tint() modifier:

Text("Visit Apple: [click here](https://apple.com)")
    .tint(.indigo)

Download this as an Xcode project

Note: Images aren’t supported.

This automatic Markdown conversion happens because SwiftUI interprets those strings as being instances of LocalizedStringKey – strings that can be localized by our app. This means if you want to create Markdown text from a property or variable, you should mark it explicitly as being LocalizedStringKey to get the Markdown rendering:

struct ContentView: View {
    let markdownText: LocalizedStringKey = "* This is **bold** text, this is *italic* text, and this is ***bold, italic*** text."

    var body: some View {
        Text(markdownText)
    }
}

Download this as an Xcode project

If you wanted the original text unchanged – i.e., you wanted the raw, unformatted Markdown symbols to be left in place – just remove the LocalizedStringKey annotation. Alternatively, you can disable both Markdown and localization entirely using the Text(verbatim:) initializer.

Sponsor Hacking with Swift and reach the world's largest Swift community!

How to render Markdown content in text

Similar solutions…