Document Viewer & Server

all2md ships two commands for looking at converted documents in a browser instead of piping Markdown to a file:

all2md view converts a single document to a self-contained HTML page and opens it in your browser (or a standalone window with -w).
all2md serve starts a small local HTTP server that converts documents on demand, including a live directory index when you point it at a folder.

Both share the same theming, diagram rendering, and syntax-highlighting features described below. For the exhaustive list of flags, see the view and serve sections of the Command Line Interface reference.

Quick start

# View a single file
all2md view report.pdf
all2md view notes.md --dark

# Serve a whole directory (browse the index, click any file)
all2md serve ./docs
all2md serve ./docs --recursive --browse

# Serve a filtered set
all2md serve "reports/*.pdf"

Both commands accept - for stdin, so you can preview piped content:

echo "# Hello" | all2md view -

Diagrams and syntax highlighting

When viewing or serving, all2md automatically enriches the page:

Mermaid diagrams – fenced code blocks tagged mermaid are rendered as diagrams using mermaid.js.
Syntax highlighting – code blocks (and raw source files such as .py or .js) are highlighted with highlight.js, matching each block’s language.

Both libraries are loaded from cdn.jsdelivr.net. This is on by default; disable either with --no-mermaid / --no-syntax-highlight. Offline, the page still renders – diagrams appear as their source text and code is shown without highlighting. The dark variants are selected automatically with --dark or the dark theme.

For example, a Markdown file containing:

```mermaid
graph TD
    A[Start] --> B{Ready?}
    B -- Yes --> C[View it]
    B -- No --> A
```

renders as a flowchart in all2md view / all2md serve.

Themes

Every page is built from a theme: a small HTML template with {TITLE} and {CONTENT} placeholders (plus optional {TOC}, {AUTHOR}, {DATE}, {DESCRIPTION}). Select one with --theme on either command.

Built-in themes

minimal (default) – clean, centered layout
dark – dark mode (also reachable via --dark)
newspaper – serif, justified, drop-cap first paragraph
docs – GitHub-style technical documentation
sidebar – two-column layout with a sticky TOC (use with --toc)

all2md view article.md --theme newspaper
all2md serve ./docs --theme docs

Writing a custom theme

A theme is just an HTML file. Save the following as my-theme.html – the only requirement is a {CONTENT} placeholder where the converted document is injected:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
    <meta charset="UTF-8">
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
    <title>{TITLE}</title>
    <style>
        body {
            font-family: "Iowan Old Style", Georgia, serif;
            max-width: 46rem;
            margin: 3rem auto;
            padding: 0 1.25rem;
            color: #2b2b2b;
            line-height: 1.7;
        }
        h1, h2, h3 { font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif; }
        h1 { border-bottom: 3px double #ccc; padding-bottom: .3rem; }
        a { color: #8a1f11; }
        pre {
            background: #faf7f0;
            border: 1px solid #e7e0d0;
            border-radius: 6px;
            padding: 1rem;
            overflow-x: auto;
        }
        blockquote {
            border-left: 4px solid #d9c9a3;
            margin: 1.5rem 0;
            padding-left: 1rem;
            color: #555;
        }
    </style>
</head>
<body>
    {CONTENT}
</body>
</html>

Then point --theme at the file:

all2md view document.pdf --theme ./my-theme.html
all2md serve ./docs --theme ./my-theme.html

Because mermaid.js and highlight.js are injected automatically, your theme does not need to include any diagram or highlighting scripts – just style pre/code to taste.

CSS-only themes

If you only want to change styling, skip the HTML boilerplate and point --theme at a plain .css file. all2md wraps it in a minimal HTML shell automatically:

/* brand.css */
body { font-family: system-ui, sans-serif; max-width: 50rem; margin: 2rem auto; }
h1, h2, h3 { color: #0b5; }
a { color: #0b5; }

all2md view report.pdf --theme ./brand.css
all2md serve ./docs --theme ./brand.css

Named themes in configuration

Register reusable theme names in a [themes] table in any all2md configuration file (.all2md.toml, pyproject.toml under [tool.all2md.themes], …). Values can be .html templates or .css files, and paths may use ~:

[themes]
corporate = "~/themes/corporate.html"
brand = "~/themes/brand.css"

# Optionally set a default theme per command
[view]
theme = "corporate"

[serve]
theme = "brand"

Now the registered name resolves on either command:

all2md view report.pdf --theme corporate
all2md serve ./docs --theme brand

See Configuration Files for how configuration files are discovered and merged.

Serving directories

Point all2md serve at a folder to get a browsable index. The index:

lists only files all2md can convert (unsupported files are hidden);
offers an aligned table view (Name / Size / Modified / Created) and a card view, with a toggle that is remembered per browser (table is the default);
updates live as files are added or removed (see --poll-interval);
honors a hand-authored index.html / index.md / README.md unless you pass --force-auto-index.

# Recursively serve a docs tree and open it
all2md serve ./docs --recursive --browse

# Always show the generated listing, ignoring a repo README
all2md serve . --recursive --force-auto-index

Note

--enable-upload and --enable-api expose write/convert endpoints intended for local development only. Do not expose a server started with those flags to untrusted networks. See the Command Line Interface reference and Security for details.