The web-doc-to-VS-Code workflow
Open URL to Markdown, paste the doc URL (a library reference, a vendor SDK page, an internal wiki), click Convert, save the .md file into your repo (somewhere like docs/external/library-name.md). In VS Code, open the file and press Ctrl+Shift+V (Mac: Cmd+Shift+V) to open the built-in Markdown preview. Ctrl+K V opens it side-by-side with the source. The preview updates live as the file changes, supports embedded math via the Markdown All in One extension, and respects your VS Code theme.
Why this beats alt-tabbing to the browser
Search: Ctrl+F inside VS Code searches the doc instantly; the browser's find-in-page is slower and gets confused by collapsed sections. Multiple docs at once: open a tab per Markdown doc and split the editor — no equivalent in the browser without juggling windows. Version control: commit the docs alongside the code that uses them, and you have a permanent snapshot of which doc version your code targeted. Offline: the converted Markdown works on a plane; the original docs site doesn't. PDFs too? Convert via PDF to Markdown and use the same preview workflow.
Pair with Copilot for in-editor doc retrieval
VS Code's GitHub Copilot Chat indexes workspace files. When the relevant docs are in the workspace as Markdown, Copilot can quote them directly in chat answers — instead of hallucinating signatures from training data. Same trick as Cursor or Windsurf, applied to the VS Code + Copilot combo most teams already have.