Markdown is a lightweight markup language, allowing people “to write using an easy-to-read, easy-to-write plain text format, then convert it to structurally valid XHTML (or HTML)”. An excellent Markdown Syntax Guide is by Daring Fireball. Sites such as GitHub, reddit, Diaspora, Stack Overflow, OpenStreetMap, and SourceForge use Markdown to facilitate discussion between users. GitHub uses “GitHub Flavored Markdown” (GFM) for messages, issues, and comments. It differs from standard Markdown (SM) in a few significant ways and adds some additional functionality.
As Markdown becomes more popular, new tools have been developed to cater to writing. This post won’t enumerate all or most tools at hand. Instead, I will just list a couple of my personally favorite Markdown editors on different platforms.
MarkdownPad is a full-featured Markdown editor for Windows. It supports instant HTML preview, spell check, custom css, etc.
ReText is very similar to MardowPad, but it works on Linux. It is written in Python using Qt libraries, therefore is able to run on any platforms. It supports full markdown syntax, live preview, HTML/pdf/odt/Google Docs export etc. To install the latest version on Ubuntu, use
>> sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mitya57/retext-beta
>> sudo apt-get update
>> sudo apt-get install retext
Markable is a remarkable online Markdown editor. It supports syntax highlighting, line preview, and file sharing with Dropbox and Evernote. For small task, it is my favorite editor.
Eclipse, gedit, Sublime, etc all provide plugins that add support for Makrdown. I will gradually add the links after I REALLY use them:
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