Markdown is a short and clean way to add formatting to a record. Most articles on SitePoint (such as this one) started lifestyles that way. In truth, all submissions have to be published in Markdown format.

You can use Markdown to your very own blog or website. First, you need to pick a perfect net host – like our preferred internet website hosting issue, SiteGround, in which you could even get WordPress pre-hooked up. Now you have the task of filling your weblog with the fine content material, and Markdown promises to make the technique quicker and less complicated.

I use Markdown loads, and that use is increasing. There’s something approximately it that I revel in that makes writing simpler and faster—and somehow more satisfying. I write in it professionally the use of Ulysses, take notes in it using Bear, and I’m even considering outlining in it the use of Outline. It’s becoming a big part of my online existence, and I’m now not by myself. Consider making it part of your workflow.

What benefits does Markdown carry to writers and bloggers? How can it enhance your writing workflow? What does it should do with WordPress? Read on to discover.

What Is Markdown?

Markdown isn’t always new. It was created by using John Gruber’s manner returned in 2004. Since then, it has genuinely caught on—it’s a key characteristic of many new apps and is utilized by default on Reddit, GitHub, StackOverflow, and several CMSs.

It’s a layout for writing on the web. In fact, at its foundation, Markdown is a quicker, cleaner manner to create HTML. Well, no longer all of HTML; however, its subset is commonly used whilst writing posts and articles.

Gruber introduces the idea with these words:

Markdown is a textual content-to-HTML conversion tool for net writers. Markdown allows you to write the use of an easy-to-examine, easy-to-write simple text layout, then convert it to structurally legitimate XHTML (or HTML).
Rather than using complicated (and ugly, hard-to-examine) markup language, Markdown uses punctuation characters to make writing (and reading) less complicated. How Can Markdown Benefit Writers and Bloggers? It’s right for writers and editors, and it virtually could make a positive distinction in your online writing. Here’s how.

Markdown makes writing for the internet faster.

Here’s one thing that writers love: When you write in Markdown, you should not flow fingers off the keyboard to feature formatting. Everything you want is proper underneath your fingers, and they can keep on flying.

It requires much fewer keystrokes than HTML and is simpler to examine than HTML. And as it’s less complicated, there’s much less to interrupt—you received have lacking remaining tags or improperly fashioned HTML. They’re all desirable matters, and your writing could be quicker and much less distracted.

Markdown makes studying content material less difficult.

The easy-to-examine content material is amazing for writers and editors alike. I edited HTML articles for years, and the content can get lost within the code. However, you do kind of get used to it.

Markdown is a good deal better. In fact, that’s its reason—it’s basically designed to make formatted web documents less complicated to examine.

John Gruber explains:

Markdown is intended to be as clean-to-examine and smooth-to-write as is feasible. Readability, but is emphasized specifically else… To this cease, Markdown’s syntax comprises punctuation characters cautiously selected for you to seem like what they suggest. E.G., asterisks around a word sincerely appear like *emphasis*. Markdown lists seem like, properly, lists. Even blockquotes seem like quoted passages of text, assuming you’ve ever used email.
Compare the HTML and Markdown beneath to look what I imply.

• <h2>This Is a Second-Level Heading</h2>
• <p>Here is a paragraph with <strong>bold</strong> and <em>italic</em> textual content.</p>
• <p>And here is an ordered list:</p>
• <ol>
• <li>First item</li>
• <li>Second object</li>
• <li>Third item</li>
• </ol>
• ##This Is a Second-Level Heading
• Here is a paragraph with **ambitious** and *italic* textual content.

And here is an ordered list:

1. First item
2. Second object
3. Third item

Markdown improves the writing workflow. Writers have to separate form and content. In different words, you shouldn’t be worried about the final appearance of your content material at the same time as you’re nevertheless crunching out phrases. One thing at a time is nice to practice.

Markdown’s easy syntax definitely allows with this. Lists, block charges, and emphasis almost write themselves, and you don’t get distracted from the assignment handy.

Markdown lets you apply undeniable text, the maximum flexible document layout that exists. You can choose from a wide sort of writing software, and Markdown’s simplicity permits all forms of automation and scripting opportunities.

Markdown is portable and future evidence.

When you write in Markdown, your files are mechanically pass-platform. You can find reproduction from one app and paste it into another regardless of the operating system or platform. There isn’t any lock-in, and you can convert Markdown to pretty much any layout you want.

And it’s future evidence. Unlike your Word or Pages report, you’ll in all likelihood be capable of open undeniable text in a decade or a century. It’s no longer a proprietary document format, so that it will be discontinued or up to date till it’s unrecognizable.

Writing in Markdown

Don’t write immediately into WordPress in your browser—it’s too easy to lose your paintings. But don’t paste text at once from Microsoft Word both—it’s now not pretty. Markdown apps are different, and they’re a delight to write in, and because they’re designed for writing for the net, they paintings properly with WordPress.

Here is a listing of a number of the primary Markdown writing apps for diverse platforms. It’s now not an exhaustive listing, so if we neglected your preferred, tell it approximately to us in the remark section underneath.

Online

Stacked.Io, SitePoint’s recommendation. It helps offline mode, collaboration with feedback, and integrated spell checking. It syncs with Google Drive and Dropbox and is free. Dillinger (free), also encouraged by SitePoint, is “a cloud-enabled, mobile-geared up, offline-storage, AngularJS powered HTML5 Markdown editor”. You can import and shop documents to/from GitHub, Dropbox, Google Drive, and One Drive.