Articles written in Microsoft Word look messy when posted online because they carry formatting from the word processor and are not formatted to CMS standards.
Is your writing not as crisp or clear as you want it to be? Markdown is the solution. When you love what you’re reading, but wish that authors would make things a little easier for readers by giving them some more help with grammar and wit use of language in their works- well this just might do the trick!
Markdowns are awesome because they allow users to easily edit text without having to switch back and forth between an editor like Microsoft Word on Windows.
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What is a Markdown Editor?
A Markdown Editor is a text editor that supports formatting syntax of the same name. It simplifies writing for modern web sites or blogs, and aims to be easier than HTML code. The format was originally named after John Gruber‘s online extension version of his Daring Fireball blog which had been written in another language called Tex-Edit that had its own rich formatting.
Markdown is a light markup language that allows you to write using an easy-to-read, easy-to-write plain text format (as opposed to the more difficult HTML) and then convert it automatically into XHTML or various other formats. The purpose of Markdown syntax is not for writing articles or blog posts in their final form but rather as intermediate steps prior to creating your styled work with CSS stylesheets one would need when publishing content on Web pages.
The idea behind the creation of this new way of composing web content was born out from Gruber’s frustrations with limitations imposed by HTML coding, which has been around since 1990s and requires different typesetting techniques than those used in print journalism.
Markdown is designed to be as easy-to-write and easy-to read, so that the focus can stay on what you want to say rather than how it looks. It’s quick and dirty with a specific formatting syntax, but effective for those who know their way around HTML already!
Advantages of Using a Markdown Editor in your CMS?
Writers who use a Markdown Editor in their CMS have an advantage over those that don’t because they can write quickly and focus on the content of their articles before worrying about formatting. The beauty is, all you need to do is convert your work into HTML or XHTML code- something most webmasters are familiar with doing anyway!
Markdown Editors also come with many features such as spell check, word count for each document, auto complete function (that suggests words while typing) and much more. What’s even better is these editors are free! You won’t be paying any monthly fees like Adobe Acrobat Pro would charge you if it were used solely for writing purposes… so go ahead and give them a try today.
