Why I Use Markdown (And Why You Should Too)

credit: Dustin Curtis

What is Markdown, and why should you care?

Let’s just start by saying that Markdown is a deceptively simple tool for writers.

Why do I call Markdown’s simplicity deceptive?

If you’re coming from Microsoft Word™ or Google Docs or Apple Pages, then at first glance using Markdown might seem like going from a fully loaded luxury sports sedan to a dune buggy: as you look aghast at how much you’d be giving up, you first balk, and then start to back away, and finally are tempted to turn tail and flat out run.

But that would be a mistake.

Because many of the things you’d be giving up turn out to actually be liabilities, if you’re at all serious about your writing.

What Markdown Is

Markdown is a plain text syntax that allows anyone to write using an easy-to-learn, easy-to-read, easy-to-type format, along with a set of tools enabling that text to be easily transformed into HTML, or practically any other system used for storing, displaying and printing textual documents.

Let’s break this down a bit:

• Plain text — This means that a chunk of text written using Markdown can be saved to a simple text file and stored on practically any computing system or device in use…