I bought launched to the markdown format a number of years in the past once I started to discover Jupyter Notebooks. Many of the opposite writers at Opensource.com knew markdown, however it was a ability that was unfamiliar to me.
Markdown is a normal approach of writing textual content, during which you employ minimal notation to markup the way you need the textual content styled. For occasion, as a substitute of clicking a button to make a phrase daring, you encompass the phrase with two asterisks (**phrase**). This has two results:
- Visually suggests emboldened textual content when seen as plain textual content
- Appears as daring, given a superb textual content converter or renderer (comparable to Pandoc or a superb markdown textual content editor)
One of the best benefits of markdown is that the majority of its notation is intuitive and derived from habits most of us have already got. It simply is smart to emphasise phrases with asterisks, mark headlines with characters to set them aside, and so forth.
Everyone spoke extremely of it, however I wasn’t positive why I would wish to study and use markdown. However, I’m a curious individual, and I started to discover markdown and the way it may determine into my writing.
Learning markdown
I loved utilizing a markdown cheat sheet as I realized. I discovered markdown to be a superb instrument for writing something, and I really like that I do not even want a particular markdown editor. Any textual content editor can write markdown as a result of markdown makes use of normal textual content to indicate model. So I began utilizing easy editors like Vim or gedit (or another editor) and consulted the cheat sheet to recollect the straightforward formatting guidelines.
I’ve been journaling this yr as a approach of organizing my ideas and studying extra about markdown. I’ve lately tried the Ghostwriter textual content editor, a superb editor with some additional markdown-specific options. Markdown has turn into so fashionable now that many editors incorporate or make it their focus to incorporate syntax highlighting, hints, and different options that make it simple to work in markdown. They’re not must-have options, however when you’ve got them, they’re good to have.
Trying Mark Text
While studying a weblog, I found Mark Text. Mark Text has instruments that make it simple to put in writing markdown whereas on the identical time offering a easy interface that simply will get out of my approach. Mark Text has six themes: Three mild and three darkish themes. Dark themes are simpler for me to make use of. The user documentation is superb, and there’s markdown syntax help out there too.
Markdown in actual time
Mark Text gives a real-time preview with a clear and easy interface. It helps the Commonmark spec, Github Flavored Markdown spec, and Pandoc Markdown. According to its web site, Mark Text additionally helps markdown extensions like KaTex, entrance matter, and emoji. It outputs HTML and PDF recordsdata.
Mark Text has numerous modifying modes like typewriter mode, supply code mode, and focus mode. Adding photographs is a snap, as you’ll be able to merely copy and paste them out of your clipboard.
A pop-up on the higher left of the Mark Text window shows the variety of characters and paragraphs entered thus far. That’s actually useful as a author.
Saving recordsdata is straightforward from the menu on the higher left of the Mark Text window or use Ctrl+S. In truth, the menus of Mark Text look pleasant and acquainted to anybody who’s used to a primary textual content editor or phrase processor.
I really like that Mark Text helps numerous codecs with easy keystroke shortcuts, together with desk blocks, diagrams, in-line codecs, math method blocks, and different code blocks.
You can obtain Mark Text to your working system from the next hyperlinks:
Mark Text is open supply with an MIT license. You can all the time download the newest model.
Alternatively, you’ll be able to set up Mark Text on macOS with brew set up --cask mark-text and on Windows with Chocolatey by coming into choco set up marktext.
Mark Text is all the time in search of sponsors and builders. The venture has a guide for contributors. In addition, you’ll be able to help the venture on Patreon and Open Collective.