Typora: one of the best looking and best user experiences for markdown writing. Along with The Archive, Typora is my primary plain text editor. Typora provides both a great looking interface and smooth user experience. The layout and typography makes for a pleasurable appearance. Typora is not available for iPhone but there are some alternatives with similar functionality. The most popular iPhone alternative is iA Writer.It's not free, so if you're looking for a free alternative, you could try Rentry.co or Paper.If that doesn't suit you, our users have ranked more than 100 alternatives to Typora and eight of them are available for iPhone so hopefully you can find a.
“The power of the unaided mind is highly overrated. Without external aids, deep, sustained reasoning is difficult.”
Don Norman, professor and author of The Design of Everyday Things
External aids, especially writing, are the key to sustained learning and a creative life. The goal of your productivity, writing or note-taking systems should be to enable you to think clearly, stay organized, learn, and create. They should augment your ability to reason, to develop connections across knowledge, and produce a targeted output.
There are a lot of tools that can help you in this pursuit. We live in a world of nearly endless options for productivity and writing software. Personally, I’ve tried many. But sometimes the best solution is one of the simplest and oldest. For me, that solution was “downgrading” to plain text files as my primary means for note-taking, writing, knowledge management and life organization.
Rather than a fully featured notes or writing tool, I now have a bunch of plain text files and a lot of them. The files themselves are simple, can be edited on any system, and are future-proof. I write in markdown. I use plain text files not only for my writings, study notes and note-taking but also for my goals, organizational, project notes.
I call this method and approach a plain text life, by which I mean a note-taking, organizational, and writing system based on plain text files.
The files and notes themselves have been intentionally designed to be “organized” as network of information. Practically-speaking this translates into notes stored in a few directories, tagged, and connected together using a links. The end result is a loosely-coupled web of notes. It’s evolving, has emergent properties and is trackable too.
This setup helps me focus on what matters: writing and keeping my projects, ideas and thinking organized and interconnected.
In this post, I want to share my take on the “plain text life” and how using plain text files and combination of tools, best practices, and organizational principles can unlock a powerful and efficient framework for writing, thinking, note-taking, project management, goal tracking, or whatever you are working on.
This post is divided into four sections with four questions:
At its core the plain text life is just a just a bunch of text files, but hopefully you too can assemble a powerful framework for staying organized, writing, learning and creating.
Let’s get started exploring a plain text life!
NOTE: For a how-to post on migrating off of Evernote, check out Post-Evernote: How to Migrate Your Notes, Images and Tag into Plain Text Markdown.
“Writing is thinking. To write well is to think clearly. That’s why it’s so hard.”
David McCullough
Writing is arguably the critical ingredient to how we think and learn. If you can’t write about something coherently and intelligibly, then your thinking on that topic or subject is vague and incomplete.
Similarly, I’d argue writing is a key aspect to personal and professional organization too. Often through lists, note-taking, project management tools, or a process journal, we write out our plans, goals, intentions and other aspects that clarify what we want to accomplish. Writing allows us to express vague feelings and turn them into intentions and goals.
Writing is also a way to keep track of things. It is argued that written language evolved largely as a mean to help us keep track of early business transactions. Writing is central factor in externalizing our memory. It also provides how we pass knowledge from generation to generation.
Over the years, I’ve used a number of tools to help me write, learn, and stay organized. I recently migrated off of Evernote. I elected not to switch to another note-taking app and instead started using just plain text files.
Plain text will never require a subscription, lock away features, or go out of business. It’s free and here forever.
There are also notable concerns with using plain text files. Chief among them is the requirement for more personal discipline and personal organization. By not using someone else’s designed setup, you have to make your own choices on how to stay organized.
While it might seem like there are a lot of disadvantages or at least challenges to a plain text file-based setup, they might all be boiled down a singular question: How to stay organized with plain text files?
Online jacks or better. Let’s at check out a few plain text file tools first before returning to this question.
The great thing about working with plain text files is you can open them up on almost any tool. This makes it quick and easy to edit a document in the command line, on your phone or on any number of text or code editors.
While I listed “poorly designed” and “weak user experience” as one of the disadvantages to using plain text files and existing editors, this issue has started to change. In fact, due to the increased popularity of simple writing tool, there are a number of great plain text editors out there. A message to all my haters.
Here several I like:
Along with The Archive, Typora is my primary plain text editor.
Typora provides both a great looking interface and smooth user experience. The layout and typography makes for a pleasurable appearance. Unlike most other editors, Typora hides the actual markdown as you write and shows you the preview of what you’ll see in the output. It’s much like a WYSIWYG (“What You See Is What You Get”) editor. You’ll need to get used to a few shortcuts to make the experience smooth, but once you get the hang of it, it really is a great way to write and edit plain text documents.
One of my favorite features with Typora is its ability to embed images. This allows me to include local and external images that are displayed seamlessly, much like other full-featured note-taking tools.
Typora is available for Mac, Windows and Linux and is under active development.
Keeping your notes organized and connected is one of the principal challenges to using plain text files. The Archive provides one of the best solutions so far.
Basically, after opening a directory of files, The Archive feels much like a normal note-taking app but uses any directory of files. You can search and open notes by file name or find related notes by a tag. You can add sidebar shortcuts to tags or specific searches, much like you would in a tool like Evernote. It also provides a simple and clean interface for editing plain text files or option to open an external editor.
The Archive is attempting to solve the problem of connecting together notes into a robust knowledge base using wiki-style links and tagging. So, if you’ve migrated your notes from a system with existing tags, then it should provide much of the same functionality you had before.
Embracing the philosophy of plain text files and tool independence, The Archive’s explicit focus is helping you build a Zettelkasten or Connected Knowledge System on top of your existing plain text files. We will explore several of these organizational aspects around plain text files below.
The creators of The Archive also provide a good intro to what is a Zettelkasten and a list of other compatible tools for a connected notes system using plain text files. Most notable are nvAlt and DevonThing.
The Archive is currently only available on Mac and is under active development.
There are a lot of markdown editors for iOS. You can view feature-by-feature breakdown of markdown apps here. I’ve tried several and found 1Writer to be the most complete solution. The editor itself is solid, and the preview option is great. But the real distinguishing feature is file search and tagging. 1Writer makes it easy to find files with a certain tag, view recently changed files or search. At present, I find the search function superior and faster on iOS to The Archive on Mac.
I don’t do much writing or permanent note-taking on Android. I mostly just jot notes into a standard note-taking app that I sync and process on the computer. That said, my preferred editor for Android right now is Monospace. It looks great and performs well. I also find Writer Plus to be another solid option.
Considering how active the space around plain text and markdown editors is, I highly recommend you do your own research and testing on the best markdown and plain text editor for you.
In a previous section, we left a question on the table, How to stay organized with plain text files? This question might be shortened to just: How to stay organized?
Personally, I’ve invested a lot of thought, testing, and writings to personal organization, and it’s been an important aspect of a productive and creative professional life. For me, the core of my productivity and note-taking systems have come from Getting Things Done (GTD), The Organized Mind, Wikipedia and, most recently, the Zettelkasten Method, which I covered in A Book Review of How To Take Smart Notes by Sönke Ahrens.
A few practical principles have emerged:
These principles apply most directly to project and task management. The main tools I’ve used historically are Evernote, Todoist, and a Calendar. I still use Todoist as my GTD-inspired task manager as well as a way to track what I get done. In place of Evernote, I now use plain text files to accomplish many of the same roles, like outcome thinking, goal planning, clarifying next steps and periodic reviews.
The core organizational idea behind my plain text files-based notes, organization or writing system is this: uniquely named plain text files; files connected together using manual tagging and links between files; and files grouped into a few targeted directories by either project or purpose.
The only requirements of my notes and writing system are: 1. notes must have a permanent and unique identifier, and 2. they must be capable of being connected to other notes. The unique id is generated by a date timestamp, which by the passage of time means it won’t be repeated. Mac os x yosemite 10 10 5 dmg. Connections are provided through manual links between notes and by adding tags.
All files should have a unique file name.
There are various opinions on how best to name your files. For our needs, setting your own title won’t work, because you might change it one day. It might not be unique, especially if you occasional create similarly titled notes.
It might not seem obvious why you want your file names to be unique. A unique identifier is responsible for keeping that note separate from other notes and allows for connections between files. With a unique and immutable identifier you can separate that piece of content from everything else and you can be sure links to it will go to the right place.
So, the current best practice to use a unique name based on the datetime when you create that file. This results in files like 201902111136.md or 201603302120.txt.
A program like The Archive or 1Writer can be configured such that new files default to this naming convention. Additionally, you can use a bash script to automate creating unique plain text files.
While I recognize the need for unique filenames and believe that the file’s creation datetime is the best starting point, I still find it useful to have an indicative name or keyword as well. Without a keyword in the filename, search because a challenge.
Personally, the best file naming convention I’ve found includes a unique name based on the creation data with an optional keyword or short title after. This results in files that look like this: 201812182000_neurofeedback.md, 201602261908_My_Studies_Meta-Note.md, or 201901101453_model_of_habits.md.
This ensures a unique identifier with the datetime so you can reference and link to the file elsewhere as well as making file lookups faster from memory.
All notes should be linked to other pieces of information in your system.
Search and discoverability have always seemed key features for me when looking for a note taking and knowledge setup. But I’ve come to realize the the ease of search has resulted in significant cognitive overload later and a somewhat muddled way of organizing things overall.
With search we can often times can get to what we wanted, eventually. As one of the writers on Zettelkasten notes, search is like a shotgun. Sometimes it hits but it’s method is a wide blast and often times it’s just getting you a broad selection you still need to process through to find something. What we want is a sniper’s precision rather than a shotgun approach. Manual connections and proper tagging are the sniper and curator at its best.
My objective is to create a latticework of notes, much like how our brains work. What I’m building is a curated network of linked information. As such, we need consciously built connections for this to work.
There are a couple of practical ways to create connections between notes. If you are using a Zettelkasten tool like The Archive, you can use wiki-style links with double brackets. You can also use a full-qualified link to the file on your file system. Personally, I use both methods. In both cases I’ve literally connected pieces of information into a network that makes it easy to “dance” through referenced notes and related topics smoothly.
I believe all tags must also include at least one tag.
Tags are another form of organization. Unlike a folder or directory, tags are flat and non-hierarchical. Multiple notes will all reference a single tag. You can then do a search on a single or multiple tags to find all tagged content. Like a link, tags are a manual, curated process where you build out key connections in your network of notes.
Tags can be quite flexible, allowing you to build flexible groupings. Applying tags to certain notes allows you to reference a topic that may not even be mentioned in the note’s text.
While tagging can seem easy initially, as your system grows tagging can admittedly become rather huge and overwhelming, especially if you have dozens or hundreds of notes sharing the same tag. Tags remains one area where you likely should consider specialized tags based on the type of note. For example, a comprehensive summary note might be tagged #SummaryNote or a blog draft as #DraftWorking.
If you are a regular writer or note-taker, then it’s likely you have lots and lots of files and notes. In my own case, when I migrated off of Evernote, I ended up with 11,278 note files. That’s so many files that I couldn’t even use certain basic search functions on the command line. And since I had many different types of notes from personal writings and project notes to collected articles, journal entries and random thoughts, it was not immediately obvious how to organize all of these files.
Sure, everything was tagged, but where should everything go?
We often conflate working on our productivity system with actually being productive and working. They are not the same thing. In fact, how you stay organized should serve the outcomes you want to achieve (and not the other way around). As such, we need to remember that our file and notes system are for two purposes: organization and creation/learning.
This means we should develop and maintain a system that help us towards those two roles of planning and staying organizing and creating and learning stuff.
One of the key things I realized early on when I switched to plain text was that a lot of my notes didn’t serve either of these roles. Instead they just helped me collect stuff.
As a self-tracker and documenting guy, I love collecting stuff and tracking different aspects of my life. For example, automation tools like IFTTT and Zapier can make it seamless for me to pull in links, articles and clippings from tools like Todoist or Instapaper. Evernote and most note-taking tools also make it a tad too easily to be used for miscellaneous collecting. Once all of my notes were into plain text, I discovered how much of it was just collected stuff.
The key realization here is that your plain text files system should not just be another collection system. In fact, collecting and aggregating should be a minor aspect of what these systems should do. What our system should help us do is to learn, connect and create and to stay organized.
One helpful step in the direction of better organization was clarifying the type of notes I have and generate. At present I have six primary types of notes:
With these note types, I’m now better at staying organized and at using certain notes towards an intended purpose. This is better than what I previously had which was one mega note that mixed quotes, insights, reflections and collected study materials.
For me the core distinction worth reiterating is between project notes and insight notes. Insight notes are atomic ideas distilled largely in your own words on a single topic or idea. Project notes are the meta-note about an area I’m working on. These could be goal, a field of study or some other largely unified area.
For example, my reflection on the process for a goal or project is best separated from the work itself, like learning notes or writing on that project. This is actually how writers like John Steinbeck worked. They had the book they were writing and a separate meta or process journal as well as letters to friends describing the effort and challenges of that project.
Similarly, it doesn’t make sense to mix my actual study notes with the meta-level note on the goal-striving related to those studies. Their roles are separate so it makes sense to split up the notes.
This realization has lead to the primary way of separating notes into directories.
Now that we’ve defined our core note types, we can then think about where those files should go and how to organize them.
While we’ve set a few key requirements around filenames and organizational aspects and with tags and direct links, we haven’t talked about how best to group and organize all of your notes.
Some argue in favor of splitting notes into different projects and areas, while others believe it is best to keep everything in a single system, like a Luhmnan’s Zettelkasten. In general it is best to not split your notes into too many subdirectories or sub-projects. this leads to notes getting buried and lost.
In view of my goal of a networked system of notes, my notes work best all together, linked through flexible structures like tags and direct links.
The one exception is your “collector notes,” which I’d say are best kept entirely separate. These notes are other people’s words, pollute search and distract from the importance of putting things in your own words.
For the other notes, keep as many of the notes as you can together and use tagging as main way of staying organized.
In terms of how many folders and directories to use, it depends on you, but I find that a balanced approach works best for me. At present, I have four folders or file directories:
Arguably I could go and either combine all of my notes into a single directory or further refine my notes into additional subdirectories. I find that the current separation works well for me.
It separates out three key areas of my life and work. I have notes about my projects and goals, which serve meta-level organizational objectives; I have my writings and learning notes in a single knowledge and creation base, which allows for an organic and connective approach to learning and writing; and I have my coder notes to follow my technology work. Overall, this division is a good conceptual division too. It also makes it possible to track the evolution of each of these areas separately.
There is a lot more that I could share related how I take and manage specific types of notes. For now, I’ll have to leave these topics for future posts.
My main advice here is to realize that notes and writing serve different purposes. You generally want all of your notes together and to use manual connections and flexible tagging to serve as your primarily organizational methods. When developing your own setup, define specific note types towards your creative and your organizational goals.
My goal was not to replace Evernote but to evolve my system. My objective was to reconsider my organization, writing, and how I capture, process and use bits of information productively, creatively and meaningfully.
When I migrated all of my notes off of Evernote and into plain text, I wasn’t looking to repeat what I had done before: Create a convenient, grab-bag collection of notes, articles, writings and project ideas. Instead, I wanted to “evolve my system.” The current working result is what I call a plain text life.
At its core are simple plain text files that are future-proof and flexible. I write my files in markdown. These files can be opened up on any device and edited on any number of text editors. Currently my two favorites are Typora and The Archive.
The real challenge has been and remains: How to stay organized? This isn’t merely a question of information management and note-taking but of learning, memory and human creativity.
So far, a few practical, organizational principles have emerged.
First, all files need a unique name. My current preference is a combination of a unique datetime and an indicative keyword or title. This second feature enables easily file look-ups.
Second, all files should be connected to other files through direct links as well as an evolving system of tags. While it’s possible to have notes that aren’t linked to others, what we are building should hint at the flaw in this. It would be like having a single neuron storing a single memory but not connected to anything else. The memory neuron would be useless since it wouldn’t be connected or retrievable. It’d be a memory you could never get to. Notes should aim to be interconnected.
Third, strive to keep all files together in as few directories as possible. This is both practical and conceptually. Practically, fewer directories forces you to develop an interconnected network, rather than sub-divided directories. Files come into contact and become more meaningful when interlinked. Conceptually, I define and divide things using a different note types and a few directories according to my primary use cases: learning/writing, organization/projects/goals and coder notes. This corresponds with how the plain text life applies to my work as such as a writer, engineer, and life-long learner. There are a lot of ways to organize information and knowledge and I encourage you to explore your own way.
This final point leads me again to ponder the question of organization. It’s a question that I suspect will continue to haunt me going forward too. To repose the question: What is the best way to organize information, knowledge or our creative work, especially in view of our goal of creative output?
In writing this post, I realize that at times I may have come off as a “comprehensive,” “systematic” or all knowing. This was more about my trying to encompass and write about a range of topics, rather than some claim at the definitive answer. Learning and creativity are complex topics. Both are still being actively studied by researchers today and much still needs to be explored before we can claim a definitive understanding of how thinking works.
That said, at least two key aspects from the research stand out to me when it comes to learning and creativity. Those are network and complexity. Basically our brains work through a network of connections. As we learn, we build connections between chunks of information. Complexity defines that fact that we can never reduce it to its individual aspects and instead properties and new aspects emerge from that complexity and network. In our brains, as a complex network of ideas emerge, these existing and emergent connections enable us to learn, think and create. We are the product of complex, internal neurological networks.
In this same spirit, my notes system strives to emulate and evolve as a complex network of notes too. The organizational structure holds similar assumptions such that notes should be linked together and exist as part of a complex network of interconnections.
This complex, connective approach to notes means we must largely move beyond any attempt at hierarchy. Notes will never fully or completely be ordered and organized. This includes knowledge and smart notes, written drafts and organizational project notes. We must accept them as a network since it’s from this network where emergent, magical things happens, like thinking, learning and creativity. In our notes and writing systems, we must embrace the network and endeavor to write and create notes much like how our brains works: as a complex latticework of connections.
If you’ve ever written an article in Microsoft Word and tried moving the text into a CMS, you have probably spent a lot of time scouring for untidy formatting and obstructions that result from this cross-platform conversion.
So, we figured it was time to introduce you to the magic of Markdown editors, and why you should be using them right now.
When it comes to formatting, most people will use the built-in editor of their content management system to create headings, italicize the text, and build lists.
Fair enough, but guess what? You don’t need to rely on a complicated toolbar or apply text formatting. You can use a Markdown editor instead.
In this post, we’ll give you a detailed explanation of what a Markdown editor is, and then provide you with an ultimate list of the best Markdown editors.
The end goal is to equip you with a minimalist writing tool that allows you to pen down your thoughts, and then export them to a CMS like WordPress without stressing too much about their appearance.
Let’s get started.
Don’t wait for someone else to do it. Hire yourself and start calling the shots.
A Markdown editor is an intuitive and lightweight text-to-HTML conversion tool for web content writers.
You can use it to format lists, headers, and for emphasis, as well as to incorporate links and images.
The idea is to produce web content that is as easy to read as plain text.
Markdown editors have existed since the turn of the decade but only became popular after John Gruber of Daring Fireball introduced Markdown back in 2004.
After getting frustrated having to write long, laborious HTML codes to format his content, he worked with the late computer programmer Aaron Swartz to create a plain text formatting syntax that would quickly and easily translate content into HTML. That’s how Markdown was born.
The language uses an easy-to-learn syntax to accomplish the same goal that HTML does. However, it’s simpler than hypertext markup, and you don’t need to worry about closing or opening text.
To make a piece of text web-ready, Markdown uses characters and symbols you’re already familiar with. So, if you know how to make an emoticon or create a hashtag, you can leverage Markdown.
Today, Markdown comes packaged in tools that don’t require you to memorize the syntax outright, so even someone with no HTML experience can use a Markdown editor to create content for the web. Aladdins gold casino no deposit bonus.
Aside from speeding up the formatting process, markdown editors offer the following benefits:
1. You can collaborate
If you are writing on Microsoft Word and require the input of other people, you’ll need to send the document to them and then have them send it back to you so that you can merge the changes.
With a collaborative Markdown editor, this is quite straightforward as multiple users can work on the same document in real-time.
2. You can export in multiple formats
Markdown is much easier to compose than HTML. With that said, you might still want to export the content in the HTML format.
The best Markdown editor will make it easy to write your content and quickly export it to PDF, web pages, or Rich Text Format.
3. You can work on any platform
Since there are dozens of really good Markdown editors for all platforms (Linux, Mac, Windows, web, etc.), you can pretty much write and edit text from any device and location.
This can bring a massive difference in your productivity. If you have a cloud-based folder for storing copies of your work, switching devices should become effortless, with no distortion in your workflow or user experience.
Thanks to the rise of the Markdown language, every major platform has a decent range of Markdown editors. Below, we’ll break down some of the absolute best (platform-wise) as well as highlight their unique features. So, without further ado, let’s take a look at your options.
Here are some of the best Markdown editors for Mac users:
1. Byword
Byword is a minimal text editor with complete Markdown support, including subtle syntax highlighting, easy keyboard shortcuts, tables, cross-references and even footnotes.
Its “Format” menu includes options for paragraph indent, quote level, lists, and more, so you don’t have to memorize the syntax for these styles.
Another notable feature is the “Typewriter Mode” that keeps the line you’re writing at the center of your Mac’s display, while “Line and Paragraph Focus” dim all content other than the existing paragraph, letting you focus in a distraction-free environment.
When it comes to publishing, you can post your content to Tumblr, Blogger, WordPress, Medium, and even Evernote from the tool. Documents can be exported to PDFs, Rich Text Format, and Word documents.
Price: $10.99
2. Ulysses
Ulysses is a full-featured Mac OSX Markdown editor with uniquely streamlined features that cover the whole writing process. With a few characters, you mark vital passages, comments, or headlines. Even links, footnotes, and images are inserted with ease using Ulysses’ Plain Text Enhanced function.
In addition, you’ll find several other features waiting unobtrusively in the tool’s background.
There’s a “Typewriter Mode” that keeps your focus on the sentence in front. There’s also a character and word counter, accessible through a small icon on Ulysses’ taskbar. You can even create word count goals and link them to deadlines that keep you on track.
Ulysses also has a powerful publishing function that’s quite simple to use. You can post your work directly to Medium and WordPress, either as a draft or a published blog post. And it’ll also let you export the final document to a whole array of other handy formats, including HTML, DOCX, Text Bundle, Rich Text Format, Plain Text, and ePub.
Price: 14-day free trial, $4.99/month, or $39.99/year
3. MacDown
MacDown is a robust tool that offers syntax highlighting, live preview, and a minimalistic appearance that makes it easy to apply Markdown formatting.
The editor’s author, Tzu-Ping Chun, released MacDown after announcing that one of his favorite MarkDown editors, Mou, was shutting down its development. Chun started from the ground up, dedicating weekends to put together his own solution, and MacDown was the result.
Despite its simple design, MacDown is fully featured with highly customizable language rendering, auto-completion, and lots of Markdown syntax. Plus, exporting to HTML or PDF delivers consistently good results.
Price: Free
You can install and use the following Markdown tools directly on your Windows device without having to configure anything beforehand.
1. Caret
Caret is a simplistic editor with an emphasis on productivity and a clean UI. Its editor is set up to help you with fences, HTML, lists, emphasis, and more. The tool also has the capability to complete code, emoji, HTML, and file paths.
The tool’s sidebar shows a folder’s data, with your work in progress listed at the top edge of Caret. You can use it to jump to a specific document, activate typewriter mode, or activate the dark mode to work during the night.
Also, working on Caret can be a great way to learn Markdown, as the syntax is always on display, but there’s also an option to activate a preview pane if you prefer. Moreover, you can export documents to PDF and HTML.
Price: Free trial, $29
2. ghostwriter
ghostwriter gives you a distraction-free environment for writing captivating content, including a clean interface and a full-screen option.
You can preview your work in HTML, use the “Focus Mode” to narrow your attention to a single paragraph, and even create your own custom style sheet to preview how your content will appear on the internet.
The tool also has a built-in processor that enables you to export documents to HTML. Alternatively, you can export to Word, PDF, ODT, and other formats by installing a document converter like Pandoc.
ghostwriter has built-in dark and light themes that deliver an aesthetic user experience out of the gate. And if that wasn’t enough, it lets you build your own! With support for background visuals, you can create the environment you prefer for your writing.
Price: Free
3. Typora
Typora is one of the fastest and most versatile Markdown editors in existence. It doesn’t have separate tabs or windows to display how the syntax is rendered and to view plain text. You can start typing straight away and apply formatting from the integrated menu bar.
The tool is ideal for writing content for the web, but that’s not all it’s capable of. If you need an easy way to write research papers for work, Typora also supports the insertion of graphs, tables, and mathematical formats.
Documents are saved in the default Markdown format (.md), but you can import and export to several different formats using Typora. Supported file export formats include DOCX, Rich Text Format, OPL, OpenOffice, PDF, Epub, LaTex, HTML, and more.
Price: Free
If your computer or smartphone is running Linux, you can use one of the following Markdown editors.
1. Remarkable Taasky beautiful task & to do list 1 5 1.
Remarkable is an excellent Markdown editor with a plethora of features. You can use it to work with both the standard and Github-flavored Markdown language. Advanced-level formatting is also possible as the tool comes with spell checking, word count, and MathJax support.
The software also provides you with a range of styling options, so you can configure it to your writing preferences as well as various keyboard shortcuts to speed up your work. Additional Markdown features include subscripts, abbreviations, footnotes, and other similar elements.
Besides all that, Remarkable can convert links into hypertext and displays a live preview for inserted visuals. You can also toggle the fullscreen mode, customize the preview using CSS, and export your documents to HTML and PDF.
Price: Free
2. Haroopad
Haroopad is an open source processor that supports the creation of web-friendly text. You can use it to author various types of content, including reports, presentations, slides, blogs, and more.
Its standout features include fenced code syntax highlighting, viewer and editor font size control using shortcuts, flowchart drawing, and styling based on CSS. The last software update also added some new functionality to Haroopad, such as the ability to display the number of tasks due in the app badge.
The tool will let you import files from YouTube, Pastebin, Twitter, and many other resources, and export them to HTML or PDF. Moreover, you can use your work as an email directly from Haroopad or post to Evernote or Tumblr.
Price: Free
3. UberWriter
UberWriter is one of the best open-source Markdown editors and packaged with several features that make writing web-friendly text a hassle-free experience. The UI is centered, and the word length in a row is restricted to increase the content’s visibility. Also, you’d find that there are no buttons or menu bars to keep the writing distraction free.
At the bottom of its layout, UberWriter displays the character and word count at the right, and its three screen modes on the left. The first of these – Focus – enables users to zoom in on the sentence where the cursor is placed. Fullscreen takes the toolbars away from your view, and Preview showcases the content after it’s been converted to Markdown language.
Other nifty features include spell check and inline preview, which enable you to see links, images, footnotes, and other elements by clicking on them.
Finally, UberWriter lets you export documents in all the popular file formats, including PDF, ODT, and HTML. Rich Text Format, OpenDocument XML, MediaWiki markup, and DOCX support is also included.
Price: Free
If you’re looking for a convenient way to turn plain text into HTML, an online Markdown editor might be the most appropriate option. Below are some of the best web-based tools for creating Markdown files.
1. HackMD
HackMD is a collaborative Markdown editor that lets you and your teammates write and edit content from any internet-enabled device. You can use the panels in the editor’s toolbar to add links, headings, quotes, and other types of formatting.
The tool’s menu bar consists of several Markdown shortcuts, and it’s also compatible with legacy editors like Emacs and Sublime.
To use the editor, you just need to sign in with Google, Facebook, or another platform that HackMD’s login page supports. After that, you can write Markdown code, and even create notes that can later be assigned to others for collaboration. People can join as registered users or guests to work on these notes with you.
In terms of exporting your content, HackMD lets you save files in Gist, Dropbox, and Google Drive. You can also download the content directly on your computer in ODF (beta), HTML, Raw HTML, or Markdown language.
Price: Free
2. StackEdit
This is another powerful online Markdown editor that features a visual toolbar for different kinds of formatting, including lists, emphasis, and bold. Whatever you write is automatically converted into Markdown in the left panel of the tool. In the right panel, you can preview what the text will appear like when it’s posted on the web.
A notable trait of StackEdit is its ability to save the documents you make to your web browser. The next time you use it, your work will be present and accessible in a tiny panel situated on the left hand of the dashboard.
What’s more, you can connect it to Dropbox or Google Drive to save your work in the cloud. To import a document, StackEdit allows you to provide a URL or your PC’s hard drive.
Price: Free
3. Dillinger
Dillinger had to make our list of the best Markdown editors. It’s a simple and modern tool that converts your Markdown content to HTML and vice versa. All you have to do is compose your text or place your document in the left panel, and choose the format you want for the final document.
You also get several export/import options, all of which can be accessed from the navigation at the top of the screen. With these features, it is simple to export your work to Google Drive, Dropbox, Medium, and Github, as well as convert files into .md, PDF, or HTML.
In addition, Dillinger provides you with a distraction-free mode that removes everything except the Markdown sentence from your view, so you can focus on producing high-quality content for your web properties.
Price: Free
So, there you have it – the top Markdown editors for every platform you could possibly use for your writing.
While most people will write in a text editor, it’s hard to ignore the appeal of a dedicated Markdown tool. You can easily convert your writing into web-friendly content, you can see a live preview of your work, and you can save your documents in various formats.
Let’s take a quick look back at the Markdown editors that best suit your needs:
Best Mac Markdown Editors:
1. Byword
2. Ulysses
3. MacDown
Best Windows Markdown Editors:
1. Caret
2. ghostwriter
3. Typora
Best Linux Markdown Editors:
1. Remarkable
2. Haroopad
3. UberWriter
Best Online Markdown Editors:
1. HackMD
2. StackEdit
3. Dillinger
What’s your take on using Markdown editors instead of the built-in editor of a CMS? Let us know in the comments section below.
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