Format a court filing from Markdown

Court filings have strict layout rules: US Letter paper, 1-inch margins, a 12-point serif font, double spacing, numbered pages, and a caption at the top. Getting all of that right in a word processor is fiddly, and it’s easy to break when you edit the document later. It’s harder still when an AI assistant drafted the text and you’re pasting it in.

Markdown Studio was built for this. It came out of a real pro se litigant’s workflow. You write the motion in plain Markdown, and the built-in Court Filing profile prints it as a pleading-style PDF.

Not legal advice. Markdown Studio is a formatting tool. Formatting rules vary by court and jurisdiction, and its output isn’t guaranteed to meet any particular court’s requirements. Always check your local rules, or ask a licensed attorney or the clerk’s office.

What the Court Filing profile does

US Letter paper with 1-inch margins
A 12pt serif body (Noto Serif, which falls back to a Times-like face offline)
Double spacing that stays continuous across paragraph breaks
Justified paragraphs with a 0.5-inch first-line indent
Centred headings for court names and document titles
Monochrome output with no brand colour anywhere, including the header and footer
Page numbers, with paragraphs and list items that flow across pages so every page fills top to bottom

Every one of these is adjustable. Copy the profile and change the margins, font, or spacing to match your court’s rules. The profile reference lists each setting.

A motion in Markdown

Here’s the start of a real example: the court header, a two-column case caption, and the title.

<div style="text-align:center">IN THE CIRCUIT COURT OF BENTON COUNTY, ARKANSAS<br>DOMESTIC RELATIONS DIVISION</div>

<div style="display:flex; justify-content:space-between"><div>JANE EXAMPLE</div><div>PLAINTIFF</div></div>

<div style="display:flex; justify-content:space-between"><div>v.</div><div>Case No. 04DR-2026-123-4</div></div>

<div style="display:flex; justify-content:space-between"><div>JOHN EXAMPLE</div><div>DEFENDANT</div></div>

#### <u>MOTION FOR CONTINUANCE</u>

Comes now the Defendant, appearing pro se, and for his Motion for Continuance states as follows.

1. The hearing in this matter is currently set for a date on which ...

The body is ordinary Markdown: paragraphs and a numbered list. The HTML only handles what Markdown can’t express, such as centring, the side-by-side caption columns, and underlined titles.

Certificate of service, signature lines, and blanks

Put the certificate of service on its own page with a page-break directive, and add a signature line with an empty bordered <div>:

<div style="page-break-before:always"></div>

#### <u>CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE</u>

I hereby certify that a true and correct copy of the foregoing was served on
all counsel of record this ____ day of July, 2026.

<div style="margin-top:36px; width:40%; border-bottom:1px solid #000"></div>

<div>JOHN EXAMPLE, pro se</div>

Fill-in blanks, redactions, and aligned blocks are covered in fill-in lines & inline HTML.

Drafting with AI

Legal drafting is a natural fit for AI assistants, and they already write Markdown. Ask the assistant for the motion in Markdown, paste the sample motion in as a template so it copies the caption layout, then paste the result into Markdown Studio and print with Court Filing. When you need a revision, hand the .md back to the assistant. You don’t have to re-format anything. See turning AI output into a PDF.

AI assistants can make up case citations. Check every citation and fact before you file.

Get Markdown Studio

Free for personal and other non-commercial use on Windows, Linux, macOS, Android, and iOS. On Windows you can also run winget install TheSaltyKorean.MarkdownStudio.

Download Markdown Studio