The Huddle All About Markdown!

[AgentPete]

You may have heard about Markdown, the decades-old writing environment that’s suddenly becoming fashionable. What is, exactly? And is it for you?

I’m delighted to show below a portion of last Saturday’s Huddle (the first time we’ve let cameras in) in which Litopian @Ed Simnett tells us about his experiences using this intriguing anti-Word word processor. Many thanks to Ed for staying up past midnight to do this – I hope you find it as interesting as we did… and if you’re not already coming to Huddles, now is a good time to start!
(NB - you may want to go full screen to view)

 

[Sarit]

Thank you for posting this. Interesting. For me, writing is difficult enough so I look for the most stripped down word processor. Pages on Mac is great, can easily create chapters and look for alternative words. So I shy away from all kinds of fancy or complicated wp that require more time....

 

[Mel L]

Very interesting! Thanks for sharing this. Personally not sure if it's for me but great to know that these alternatives exist.

 

[AgentPete]

What it does, I think, is to open up a few more options for writers. There’s not enough discussion about the impact of the writing environment on what’s actually written (I did ask Ed about that, above). EG I have a client who still works in MS-DOS because it’s suits them just fine (MS-DOS is pretty similar to markdown, really).

Personally, I find I’m moving away from ever more complex (and expensive) writing tools. Libre Office Writer is now my default word processor, altho I still have a subscription to Office… which may lapse soon, I think. The writing environment in Libre Office Writer is suitably old school (think Word several iterations ago). I heartily dislike having to learn a new interface just because MS need to keep “innovating" their product (and is CoPilot really an innovation? Maybe we hit “peak word processing” a few years ago…?)
p.

 

[BrianY]

I too am currently using Libre Office and there are good reasons: a simple menu structure and excellent file conversion abilities. However, I keep running into problems with the way it forces style sheets on every document. The worst case example is when you have a hundred different small documents (recipes? guidebook entries?), each with a slightly different style sheet (because they were typed on different machines) and you join them together as a single master document. At that point, there's so much style information that the document will be a mess. If your smaller component documents had no style sheet at all, they'll blend easily in master document.

It boils down to "what is the lightest weight text editor I can get?" For linux? For Windows? For Mac? How stripped down can it be?

 

[BrianY]

How many of you remember WordPerfect reveal codes?

 

[AgentPete]

The worst case example is when you have a hundred different small documents (recipes? guidebook entries?), each with a slightly different style sheet (because they were typed on different machines) and you join them together as a single master document.

Never thought about that, but it does sound chronic.

It boils down to "what is the lightest weight text editor I can get?" For linux? For Windows? For Mac? How stripped down can it be?

You might be a good candidate for markdown, then.

From what I understood of Ed’s talk, there is a certain tech challenge right at the start. Depending on your tolerance for tech, that might, or might not, be a problem. Basically, you’ve got to decide on some sort of editor – Ed demonstrated Visual Studio Code, but there are lots of others (GhostWriter looks pretty good, and seems to be made with writers, not just coders, in mind).

 

[E G Logan]

Depending on your tolerance for tech,

Yes, well, there's the rub.
Still, interesting to hear about. Thank you.

 

[BrianY]

Reading the posts and watching the video, I was stunned to see that my "tolerance for tech" is far higher than many of the other people here. This may be because the work I do is automatically a combination of different formats. Ideally, I should be able to type up basic documents without any pre-loaded styles on keyboard devices that can be easily tossed into a rucksack for a field trip on public transit. Then, I might also use a "real" laptop to type outside the house and process photos too.

Once I've got those files: text, photos, graphics, and perhaps things I haven't yet thought of - I can easily combine them using the Master Document feature in Libre Office. Assuming there are no embedded codes in the earlier work, the Master Document will apply a single style to the whole thing and then output it in any format you wish. I've got the output mastered, it's the input that's dragging me down.