These days, most of our writing life is now online. Because you listened to my previous episode on using Markdown, you obviously use Markdown so you can keep your writing flow while still creating formatted text. Since writing that episode, I’ve come up with more super secret, advanced ways that Markdown can improve your productivity even more!
Grandma Cuddles sent an email to her little kiddies’ parents about a field trip. It was a community service trip! Grandma Cuddles was going to teach the tots about the value of hard work through cleaning up their community. She needed to send a liability waiver to each parent because, well, picking up pieces of trash might involve sticks with a very sharp point that could accidentally pierce tiny feet and hands.
Grandma Cuddles uses an online mass-mailing service to send these emails. She had sent emails like this before. So she cut and pasted chunks ripped from previous letters right into her web-based email composer. But every time she sent herself a test email, the text she had pasted in was in a different font! Jokerman!? Papyrus?? COMIC SANS?!?!?! She couldn’t send it like this.
Use Markdown for Great Formatting
If you work on the web, you may have a web-based email composer or a list manager. The primary function of a list manager is to … manage lists. That means composing and sending messages. But every online message composer I’ve used doesn’t quite work right. The message looks great in the editor. But the test message arrives in purple. Yes, purple.
Use Markdown to save yourself from these broken, half-working, unreliable programs. The purple text happens because the HTML that the editor generates is really messy. Most editors have a way to view the HTML and paste your own HTML over what the editor itself generated.
Use Markdown to save yourself from these broken, half-working, unreliable programs.
So use Markdown to generate the HTML and paste the HTML into the editor’s HTML view. Using a program called Marked 2, which you can learn about in this previous episode, preview your Markdown text. Then use Marked 2 to view the translated HTML. Then just cut and paste the HTML directly into HTML view for AWEBER, EventBrite, or MailChimp (or whatever beast you’re trying to tame).
The email was formatted and sent, and Grandma Cuddles wanted to post a blog article about the field trip. Her blogging platform supports rich text, but doesn’t have an HTML view. It felt like she was back to square one! But never fear Grandma Cuddles, the Get-it-Done Guy supports all of your educational endeavors!
Use Markdown Tools Anywhere
When using a blogging platform that doesn’t support HTML, I use free Mac-only tools called Markdown Tools. Markdown Tools lets you use keyboard shortcuts to create rich text formatting right in the editor you’re using. If you use a Windows machine, you’ll have to do some hunting around to find something equivalent.
For Mac users, just compose in Markdown in a rich text editor. Then select the markdown, and choose a Markdown tool from the Services menu. You can convert the Markdown to rich text, convert to HTML, renumber Markdown lists, and so on. It lets you use Markdown anywhere there’s rich text.
Grandma Cuddles used Markdown Tools directly in Notepad to compose a super pretty, totally itemized, very extensive list of clothes to purchase for the tykes: sunscreen, work gloves, old boots… and a footnote that the decorative cast iron ankle bracelets would be provided! Apparently Cuddles prefers the kind that get welded on, so the kiddies don’t remove them during play break.
Use Markdown Here for Gmail
For anyone who uses Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Thunderbird, or Postbox, there’s a plugin that lets you use Markdown in Gmail. It’s called Markdown Here, and you can download it from Markdown-here.com. Make your styling beautiful and consistent with Markdown Here.
Having learned from her experience with her email editor, Grandma cuddles installed the Markdown tools services on her Mac, and began composing the blog post. She worked with Markdown right off the bat. By the time she got to the step of previewing the post, her work looked great! She added the finishing touch—a picture from the previous year’s community service outing, with 40 little tots marching in an orderly line down the highway median. What fun it is to work and learn! 230 days with no injuries!
Markdown helps you compose formatted text using Markdown. Use Markdown to have fine-grained control over the HTML generated by imperfect web message editors. Use Markdown to enter rich text into an editor that doesn’t support HTML directly. Use Markdown Tools to get Markdown anywhere on your computer, and use Markdown-Here on any platform to use Markdown with Gmail.
This is Stever Robbins. Follow Get-It-Done Guy on Twitter and Facebook. I run webinars and other programs to help people be Extraordinarily Productive, and build extraordinary careers. If you want to know more, visit http://SteverRobbins.com.
Work Less, Do More, and Have a Great Life!