Render Options

renderMarkdown accepts an optional second argument of type RenderMarkdownOptions:

const pages = await renderMarkdown(markdown, {
  format: 'png',                          // 'png' | 'svg'
  singlePage: false,                      // render into one image instead of paginating
  theme: 'dark',                          // built-in theme name or ThemeOverrides object
  codeHighlighting: { theme: 'nord' },    // Shiki theme for fenced code blocks
})

format

Type: 'png' | 'svg'
Default: 'png'

Controls the output format for each page.

Value	Output	page.data type
'png'	Raster image	Buffer
'svg'	Vector markup	string (UTF-8)

// PNG (default)
const pngPages = await renderMarkdown(markdown, { format: 'png' })
pngPages[0].data // Buffer

// SVG
const svgPages = await renderMarkdown(markdown, { format: 'svg' })
svgPages[0].data // string

Rendered output (PNG):

singlePage

Type: boolean
Default: false

When true, all content is placed into a single image whose height adapts to the content, rather than being split across multiple fixed-height pages.

const [page] = await renderMarkdown(markdown, { singlePage: true })

• The image height is capped at MAX_SINGLE_PAGE_HEIGHT (16 384 px). Content beyond that point is clipped.
• The width is always the page width from the active theme.

See Single-Page Mode for more details.

theme

Type: BuiltInThemeName | ThemeOverrides
Default: defaultTheme

Controls all visual properties: colors, typography, spacing, page size, and background gradients.

Built-in theme by name:

const pages = await renderMarkdown(markdown, { theme: 'dark' })
const pages = await renderMarkdown(markdown, { theme: 'nord' })

Available names: 'default', 'github', 'solarized', 'sepia', 'rose', 'dark', 'nord', 'dracula', 'ocean', 'forest'.

Partial override (merged onto defaultTheme):

const pages = await renderMarkdown(markdown, {
  theme: {
    colors: { background: '#1e1e2e', text: '#cdd6f4' },
    page: { width: 800 },
  },
})

Full control with mergeTheme:

import { mergeTheme, getBuiltInTheme } from 'marknative'

const myTheme = mergeTheme(getBuiltInTheme('nord'), {
  colors: { link: '#ff6b6b' },
})

const pages = await renderMarkdown(markdown, { theme: myTheme })

See the Themes guide for the complete reference.

codeHighlighting

Type: { theme?: string }
Default: { theme: 'github-light' }

Enables syntax highlighting for fenced code blocks, powered by Shiki.

Sub-option	Type	Default	Description
theme	string	'github-light'	Any Shiki-supported theme name

Shiki is loaded lazily on first use — there is no extra overhead when no code blocks are present.

Default (github-light):

const pages = await renderMarkdown(md)
// codeHighlighting: { theme: 'github-light' } is the implicit default

Dark theme pairing — combine a dark marknative theme with a matching Shiki theme:

const pages = await renderMarkdown(md, {
  format: 'png',
  theme: 'dark',
  codeHighlighting: { theme: 'github-dark' },
})

Popular Shiki theme names:

Light	Dark
github-light	github-dark
min-light	one-dark-pro
catppuccin-latte	nord
	dracula
	tokyo-night

For the full list, see the Shiki themes reference.

Fallback behaviour: code blocks without a language tag, or with an unrecognised language, are rendered as plain monochrome text (no highlighting applied).

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painter

Type: Painter (internal interface)
Default: skia-canvas painter

Advanced option for supplying a custom paint backend. Useful for testing or alternative rendering targets.

This option is intended for library integrators. Most users should not need it.