Markdown in Apple Text

Authored against iOS 26.x / Swift 6.x / Xcode 26.x.

This skill covers what Markdown actually does inside Apple's text APIs — which syntax SwiftUI Text renders, which it silently ignores, how AttributedString(markdown:) parses block structure into presentationIntent, and what it takes to render that block structure in TextKit. The patterns here describe how Markdown rendering usually fails; before assuming a feature is missing, check the actual interpretedSyntax option on the call site and verify whether the destination view is SwiftUI Text or a TextKit-backed view, since those have very different rendering surfaces.

The rule that catches every team: SwiftUI Text renders inline Markdown (bold, italic, code, links, strikethrough) and silently drops everything else. There is no error, no warning, no fallback rendering — headings render as plain text, lists render as plain lines with literal - characters, code blocks render as inline-code spans without block formatting. Block-level Markdown requires either a TextKit view interpreting presentationIntent or a third-party SwiftUI renderer.

Contents

• Inline Markdown in SwiftUI Text
• LocalizedStringKey vs String
• AttributedString markdown parsing
• PresentationIntent and block structure
• Rendering block formatting in UITextView
• Custom Markdown attributes
• Native vs third-party renderers
• Common Mistakes
• References

Inline Markdown in SwiftUI Text

A string literal passed to Text(_:) is a LocalizedStringKey, and LocalizedStringKey parses inline Markdown automatically:

Text("**Bold** and *italic* and `code`")
Text("~~Strikethrough~~ and [Link](https://apple.com)")
Text("***Bold italic*** together")

The inline syntax that renders:

The block-level syntax that does not render in SwiftUI Text: headings (# Heading), unordered lists (- item), ordered lists (1. item), block quotes (> quote), fenced code blocks, images (![alt](url)), tables, horizontal rules, task lists (- [ ]). They are silently dropped — heading characters are stripped, list bullets become literal - characters, code fences appear as inline-code spans.

LocalizedStringKey vs String

The most common "Markdown stopped working" bug is feeding a String variable to Text instead of a literal:

// String literal — Text(_:) takes LocalizedStringKey, Markdown renders
Text("**bold** text")

// String variable — Text(_:) takes a String overload, Markdown does NOT render
let text: String = "**bold** text"
Text(text)  // displays literal asterisks

// Force Markdown on a String variable
Text(LocalizedStringKey(text))

// Disable Markdown on a literal
Text(verbatim: "**not bold**")

For attributed text, parse to an AttributedString first and pass that:

let str = try AttributedString(
    markdown: userMessage,
    options: .init(interpretedSyntax: .inlineOnlyPreservingWhitespace)
)
Text(str)

Text(_: AttributedString) is the third overload and renders all attributes the SwiftUI compatibility scope understands.

AttributedString markdown parsing

AttributedString(markdown:) runs Apple's parser and returns an attributed string with attributes set per the matching syntax. The interpretedSyntax option controls how aggressive the parser is:

.inlineOnlyPreservingWhitespace is usually the right choice for short user-generated content because it doesn't fold runs of whitespace or strip newlines. .full enables block parsing but requires the destination view to interpret presentationIntent — passing a .full-parsed AttributedString to SwiftUI Text gives the same inline-only rendering as .inlineOnly, just with extra metadata stored that nothing reads.

let inline = try AttributedString(
    markdown: "Visit [Apple](https://apple.com) for **details**",
    options: .init(interpretedSyntax: .inlineOnlyPreservingWhitespace)
)

let document = try AttributedString(
    markdown: rawDocumentMarkdown,
    options: .init(interpretedSyntax: .full)
)

PresentationIntent and block structure

Block-level structure parsed by .full is stored in the presentationIntent attribute on each run. It is structural metadata, not visual instructions — presentationIntent describes "this run is part of a level-2 heading inside a block quote," and rendering is left to the destination.

for run in document.runs {
    guard let intent = run.presentationIntent else { continue }
    for component in intent.components {
        switch component.kind {
        case .header(let level):       break  // level 1-6
        case .unorderedList:            break
        case .orderedList:              break
        case .listItem(let ordinal):    break
        case .blockQuote:               break
        case .codeBlock(let lang):      break  // language hint or nil
        case .paragraph:                break
        case .table:                    break
        case .tableHeaderRow:           break
        case .tableRow(let index):      break
        case .tableCell(let column):    break
        case .thematicBreak:            break  // horizontal rule
        @unknown default:               break
        }
    }
}

A run can carry multiple intents — a paragraph inside a list item inside a block quote produces three components on each run in that paragraph. The components are ordered outermost-first.

Rendering block formatting in UITextView

To render block-level Markdown in a TextKit view, walk the runs, read presentationIntent, and translate each kind into the corresponding NSAttributedString attributes (paragraph style for indentation/spacing, font for headings, background color for code blocks). The translation isn't built in — Apple parses but doesn't render block structure outside SwiftUI's own document-rendering surfaces.

func applyBlockFormatting(to attrStr: AttributedString) -> NSAttributedString {
    let mutable = NSMutableAttributedString(attrStr)

    for run in attrStr.runs {
        guard let intent = run.presentationIntent else { continue }
        let nsRange = NSRange(run.range, in: attrStr)
        let style = NSMutableParagraphStyle()

        for component in intent.components {
            switch component.kind {
            case .header(let level):
                let sizes: [Int: CGFloat] = [1: 28, 2: 24, 3: 20, 4: 18, 5: 16, 6: 14]
                let size = sizes[level] ?? 16
                mutable.addAttribute(.font, value: UIFont.boldSystemFont(ofSize: size), range: nsRange)
                style.paragraphSpacingBefore = 12
                style.paragraphSpacing = 8

            case .unorderedList, .orderedList:
                style.headIndent = 24
                style.firstLineHeadIndent = 8

            case .blockQuote:
                style.headIndent = 16
                style.firstLineHeadIndent = 16
                mutable.addAttribute(.foregroundColor, value: UIColor.secondaryLabel, range: nsRange)

            case .codeBlock:
                mutable.addAttribute(.font,
                    value: UIFont.monospacedSystemFont(ofSize: 14, weight: .regular),
                    range: nsRange)
                mutable.addAttribute(.backgroundColor,
                    value: UIColor.secondarySystemBackground,
                    range: nsRange)

            default: break
            }
        }

        mutable.addAttribute(.paragraphStyle, value: style, range: nsRange)
    }

    return mutable
}

This is the minimal version. Lists with bullets need text-list configuration; nested lists need indent multiplied by depth; code blocks need padding via line layout — all of which is the work the third-party renderers do for you.

Custom Markdown attributes

Apple's Markdown parser supports a custom inline syntax: ^[text](key1: value1, key2: value2). Custom attribute keys that conform to MarkdownDecodableAttributedStringKey are populated automatically when the parser encounters their name.

enum HighlightAttribute: CodableAttributedStringKey, MarkdownDecodableAttributedStringKey {
    typealias Value = Bool
    static let name = "highlight"
}

enum ColorNameAttribute: CodableAttributedStringKey, MarkdownDecodableAttributedStringKey {
    typealias Value = String
    static let name = "color"
}

extension AttributeScopes {
    struct MyMarkdownAttributes: AttributeScope {
        let highlight: HighlightAttribute
        let color: ColorNameAttribute
        let foundation: FoundationAttributes
        let swiftUI: SwiftUIAttributes
    }
    var myMarkdown: MyMarkdownAttributes.Type { MyMarkdownAttributes.self }
}

extension AttributeDynamicLookup {
    subscript<T: AttributedStringKey>(
        dynamicMember keyPath: KeyPath<AttributeScopes.MyMarkdownAttributes, T>
    ) -> T { self[T.self] }
}

let str = try AttributedString(
    markdown: "Read ^[this](highlight: true, color: 'blue') carefully",
    including: \.myMarkdown
)

Without including: \.myMarkdown, the parser ignores ^[...](...) syntax and the inline text renders without the custom attributes. The scope is required at parse time, not just at render time.

The general protocol — defining a custom AttributedStringKey, building a scope, extending AttributeDynamicLookup — is covered in txt-attributed-string. The Markdown-specific bit is MarkdownDecodableAttributedStringKey conformance, which gives the parser permission to populate the key from ^[...](key: value) syntax.

Native vs third-party renderers

Native parsing (AttributedString(markdown:) plus Text or a TextKit translator) is dependency-free, type-safe, Codable-friendly, and localization-aware. Its weakness is rendering: SwiftUI Text doesn't render block structure, and writing the TextKit translator is real work for every project.

Third-party libraries solve different problems:

• MarkdownUI (gonzalezreal/swift-markdown-ui): renders full Markdown — headings, lists, fenced code blocks with syntax highlighting, images, tables, block quotes — directly in SwiftUI. Themeable. Trades native simplicity for rendering completeness.
• swift-markdown (Apple): a CommonMark parser with full AST access. Useful when you need to manipulate the document tree before rendering, or build a non-Markdown rendering pipeline (DocC uses this internally). It does not include views.

A practical decision rule: simple bold/italic/links in SwiftUI is native Text territory; a full reading view with images and code blocks is MarkdownUI territory; an editor with live syntax highlighting is a TextKit view with parsed presentationIntent plus custom attribute application.

Common Mistakes

1. Expecting SwiftUI Text to render headings or lists. Inline Markdown only. The fix is either an inline-only data model (no headings expected) or switch to MarkdownUI / a TextKit-rendered view. There is no Text-only escape hatch.

1. Markdown not rendering on a String variable. Text(_:) has overloads for both LocalizedStringKey and String; Swift picks String for a variable, which doesn't parse Markdown.

   // WRONG — picks String overload, displays literal asterisks
   let body: String = userInput
   Text(body)

   // CORRECT — force LocalizedStringKey
   Text(LocalizedStringKey(body))

   // CORRECT — parse to AttributedString first
   Text(try AttributedString(markdown: body, options: .init(interpretedSyntax: .inlineOnlyPreservingWhitespace)))

1. Parsing with `.full` and expecting block rendering. .full populates presentationIntent but doesn't render block structure visually. Without an interpreter, the result in SwiftUI Text is identical to .inlineOnly. The visual difference appears only when something walks the runs and applies paragraph styles.

1. Forgetting `including: \.myMarkdown` for custom attributes. The parser doesn't know about your scope unless you tell it at parse time. Custom ^[text](...) syntax without the matching scope is silently ignored — no error, no warning.

1. Treating `presentationIntent` as a per-paragraph attribute. It is per-run. A single paragraph with a bold word in the middle is three runs, all carrying the paragraph's intent. When applying paragraph styles, take the union of intents across the paragraph or apply on a per-paragraph basis derived from intent boundaries.

1. Whitespace folding eating user content. .inlineOnly collapses runs of whitespace per Markdown rules, which is wrong for chat-style content with intentional line breaks. Use .inlineOnlyPreservingWhitespace for any user-typed string.

1. Unhandled `@unknown default` on intent kind. PresentationIntent.Kind is a non-frozen enum; future Foundation releases can add cases. A switch over the kinds needs @unknown default to compile cleanly under -Wexhaustive-switch.

References

• txt-attributed-string — choosing between AttributedString and NSAttributedString, custom attribute keys and scopes
• txt-attribute-keys — full catalog of NSAttributedString.Key values applied during PresentationIntent rendering
• txt-swiftui-interop — what survives the SwiftUI/TextKit boundary
• AttributedString.MarkdownParsingOptions
• MarkdownDecodableAttributedStringKey
• PresentationIntent
• SwiftUI Text