Why I Fell in Love with Markdown

If you ask one hundred frequent writers to name their favorite writing tool, you'll get one hundred and one recommendations.

Here's some breaking news: what software you choose doesn't matter. What does is squeezing the right words out of your brain. That, and structuring your prose in a way that underlines the point. Most writing software distracts you from just that by offering dozens of features that may be great for formatting but are ultimately irrelevant for writing.

That's where Markdown comes into play.

What Is Markdown?

Simply put, Markdown is a markup language. Yep, that's why the name is so clever. So what's that? In short, it's a language that uses special characters (or tags) to structure information like text, images, tables — and so on. The beauty of markup languages is that both machines and humans can read it without effort.

Those who have dabbled in web development know the arguably most widely used markup language, HTML. Heck, it's even in the name: HyperText Markup Language. And even if you haven't, markup languages are commonly used in message boards (BBCode), scientific writing (LaTeX), wikis (Wikitext), or even Instant Messaging (Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp).

Here's how you'd make a text bold in different markup languages:

You see? It's not rocket science. You have a certain tag that indicates bold text begins (e.g. <b> in HTML) and ends (</b> in HTML). Most markup languages — and Markdown, too — use the same string of characters for "opening" and "closing" such a tag.

So, is it only something for geeks? No, not quite. There are plenty of uses for just about everyone who writes longer texts.

Why not Word?

But what's the point? Why go through the hassle of learning a markup language if you can just select the text, hit bold and be done with it?

There's nothing wrong with that, of course, but there are three heavy drawbacks:

• You can't — at first glance — see what text is formatted and in which way
• Taking off your mouse hand off the keyboard disrupts your typing^[1]
• Most importantly, plenty of options to distract you from what you should be doing: writing and structuring your text

Writing, Structuring, and Layout

Imagine you have the perfect idea and outline for a text you're going to write. There are three steps that follow:

1. Writing
2. Structuring
3. Layout

An alarming number of people confuse the latter two. Structuring your text isn't something visual, it's about organizing your writing. It's fleshing out what elements you have, the headings, emphases, images, and references — and not how they look.

Layout is what comes last. Why? Because it's distracting. Obsessing about finding the perfect font to suit your tone takes your focus away from what really matters: forging the strongest possible prose. This clip from BoJack Horseman sums it up perfectly.

This is how most websites work: you use a markup language (like HTML) to structure the content and apply the visual design later (via CSS). Writing should be, in principle, the same.

Markdown is the perfect tool to separate structuring and layout because it's stupid, distraction-free, and portable.

Three Reasons Why Markdown Is the Bomb

Markdown Is Stupid (in a Good Way)

There's not a lot of things you can do with Markdown. You can add headings, emphases (bold, italics, underline, strikethrough), lists, images, tables, quotes, footnotes, links, code blocks, and horizontal rules.

That's it. That's the complete list. There are no colors, no fonts, no text sizes, no way to align text, no margins, paddings, or line heights.

That also means it's super easy to master. With the help of a Markdown cheat sheet, you'll learn it in a matter of minutes and know it by heart in a matter of days.

Markdown Is Distraction-Free

Humans aren't very good at resisting distraction. Having a full-fledged word processor like Word or LibreOffice isn't ideal because it invites the temptation of fiddling with the layout instead of focusing on what's important: writing.

Crafting compelling prose is a difficult task that needs deep focus. And in order to do this kind of "deep work", we need a toolset that takes everything away but the bare necessities. Because of its strictly limited feature set, Markdown is the ideal language for distraction-free writing.

Markdown Is Portable

What you need to use Markdown is:

• a plain text editor (Windows Notepad or Apple Notes will do)
• an interpreter (something that makes **bold** text bold)

There are specialized Markdown editors that can do both.^[2] Since Markdown is a language, you don't need any additional scripts or plug-ins. It also means it's compatible to all operating systems and devices. If you can input text, it'll support Markdown. In theory, you could even use Markdown on a piece of paper (although the interpreting part would be difficult).

There's plenty of software available that can interpret and format Markdown, there's a free cross-platform application, an iOS app, an Android app, one that runs in your browser, and even a Word add-in.

A lot of other writing, journaling, and note-taking applications already support Markdown. Maybe even software you use on a daily basis. Try putting text between two pairs of **asterisks**. and see what happens. if it becomes bold, congratulations! The software supports Markdown.

Others are notably missing, including Microsoft Word^[3], Google Docs, and Apple Pages.

You're in Good Company!

Most technical documentation today is written in Markdown (including that of Apple and Microsoft) but it's not only for geeks. An increasing number of non-tech people — such as myself — are jumping on board.

With an ever-increasing list of software that not only supports Markdown but is build around it, abandoning clunky word processors in favor of a distraction-free Markdown-based app has never been easier.

I switched to Markdown for all my writing and I never want to go back. As someone who writes a very diverse range of things from professional briefings to articles on music production to song lyrics to, well, this blog^[4], Markdown is my Swiss Army knife.

It can be yours, too. So why don't you try it, if just for a day?

Image Credit

• Photo by Charles 🇵🇭 on Unsplash