DownSmith

DownSmith is a powerful, feature-rich Markdown editor with real-time preview, and HTML export, built in Java with Swing. Perfect for writing documentation, blog posts, README files, and any content that requires Markdown formatting.

Table of Contents

• DownSmith
• System Requirements
• How to Run
• Building from Source
• Dependencies and Third-Party Libraries
• DownSmith License
• Acknowledgments
• Author

System Requirements

• Windows (Installer & Portable):

  • Operating System: Windows 10 or Windows 11 (64-bit)
  • Java Requirement: None. A custom Java Runtime is bundled with these versions.

• Universal:

  • Operating System: Windows, macOS, or Linux
  • Java Requirement: Java 11 or higher is required.
  • Memory: 256 MB RAM minimum (512 MB recommended)
  • Disk Space: 50 MB for application and dependencies

How to Run

Substitute the current version number for "1.0" in the following file names.

• Portable:

  • Runs on Windows. Can be run from a thumb drive without installing.
  • Extract the DownSmithPortable-1.0 folder
  • In that folder, double-click the DownSmithPortable-1.0.exe file

• Universal:

  • Runs anywhere that Java 11 or greater is installed.
  • Extract the DownSmith-1.0.jar folder from the DownSmith-1.0-Universal.zip file,
  • Double-click the DownSmith-1.0.jar file, or
  • Open a terminal/command prompt in that folder, and

  • run:

    Bash

    java -jar DownSmith-1.0.jar

  NOTE :

  • The /lib folder must remain in the same directory as the .jar file for spell-checking to function.
  • Ensure Java 11+ is installed.

Building from Source

• Extract the contents of DownSmith-1.0-Source.zip into a new project directory named, say, downsmith.

• DownSmith uses Maven for build automation.

  In Bash:

    # Navigate to the project directory
    cd downsmith

    # Build all distributions (Portable, Installers, and Source ZIP)
    mvn clean install -Prelease

• The final outputs will be located in the dist/1.0/ directory.

Dependencies and Third-Party Libraries

DownSmith is built using the following open-source libraries:

FlatLaf

• Copyright: Copyright © 2003-2026 FormDev Software GmbH. All rights reserved.
• Purpose: Swing Look and Feel (with Darcula/IntelliJ themes support)
• License: BSD-3-Clause
• Website: FlatLaf

RSyntaxTextArea (3.4.0)

• Copyright: Copyright (c) 2012, Robert Futrell All rights reserved.
• Purpose: Syntax highlighting and advanced text editing
• License: BSD 3-Clause
• Website: RSyntaxTextArea GitHub

CommonMark-java (0.23.0)

• Copyright: Copyright (c) 2015-2024, Atlassian and others. All rights reserved.
• Purpose: Markdown to HTML conversion
• License: BSD 2-Clause
• Extensions: GFM Tables, Strikethrough, Autolink, and Task Lists
• Website: CommonMark-java

Jazzy (0.5.2)

• Copyright: Copyright (c) original authors and contributors of the Jazzy project: Mindaugas Idzelis, Ben Galbraith, Damien Guillaume, Robert Gustavsson, Jason Height, Anthony Roy, Stig Tanggaard, Don Vail, Matthew Demerath, Tony Chan
• Purpose: Spell-checking library
• License: GNU LGPL 2.1
• Website: Jazzy SourceForge

Autolink-java

• Copyright: Copyright (c) 2015, Robin Stocker and others
• Purpose: Java library to extract links (URLs, email addresses) from plain text
• License: MIT
• Website: AutoLink Java

DownSmith License

DownSmith is released under the MIT License. See the licenses file for details.

The third-party libraries listed above are included under their respective licenses. Full license credits for all dependencies are included in the THIRD-PARTY.txt file bundled within the application.

Acknowledgments

Special thanks to:

• Robert Futrell for RSyntaxTextArea.
• Atlassian and the CommonMark-java contributors for the Markdown parsing library.
• Mindaugas Idzelis and the Jazzy contributors for the spell-checking library.

Author

John Grosberg

Part of the Smith Tools family, including ChordSmith.