View markdown files offline

Atom by Github. Gives you a side by side preview.

There are a few Chrome plug-ins that work well. I've been using Markdown Preview Plus.

After install, enable "Allow access to file URLs" in Extensions (menu > More tools > Extensions or enter URL chrome://extensions/ instead).

Then drag-n-drop a Markdown file onto Chrome and use your favorite editor to edit.

I wrote Grip a while ago to do exactly this. It renders exactly like it does on GitHub and provides several additional options too:

• In addition to READMEs, Grip can renders GitHub comments and issues
• Click through local links to render other .md files
• An API to use in your own projects
• Export to an HTML file

Install with pip:

pip install grip

Then go to the directory that contains your README file and run:

grip

Pass -h for additional help and options.

Here's a screenshot of Grip rendering Grip's README:

Hope this helps. Check it out here.