Why paperdown exists
A small frustration that wouldn't go away.
Every time I had a markdown file I wanted to share as a PDF — a side-project README, some notes, a draft post — the output was generic. Typora's defaults didn't fit my taste. Obsidian's PDF inherited my vault's reading-mode theme, which looked great in private but felt personal when sent to someone else. Pandoc with default LaTeX gave me a journal article. None of them produced the artifact I actually wanted to send.
So I built paperdown. One focused tool: paste in markdown, get a beautifully designed PDF, no install. Six themes I actually want to read, code highlighting that doesn't look like 2008, math that just works. That's it.
What we believe
PDFs are documents you share, not documents you write in.
They should feel intentional — designed for the person who opens them, not for the person making them. paperdown is built to make that artifact, nothing else.
Themes designed for the document.
Not inherited from your editor's reading mode, not the LaTeX default, not whatever your note-taking app happens to use. Six themes that each do a specific thing well — Editorial, Modern Minimal, Academic, Manuscript, Whitepaper, Notebook.
Generous free tier, honest paid tier.
Free works fully, with a small footer wordmark and a daily export limit. Pro removes both. No trial expirations, no feature gating that feels mean.
No signup to use it.
You shouldn't have to make an account to see what a tool does. Paste markdown, get a PDF.
What's next
A few things on the roadmap, in rough order:
- More themes — and the ability to tweak the ones we have
- Image hosting for embedded images in markdown
- Honest comparison pages once theme polish lands (Typora, Pandoc, Obsidian)
- Whatever you tell us we need
Get in touch
Bug, feature request, or hi — email feedback@paperdown.app, or click the Feedback button in the editor.