If you like Markdown and own an iPad, I have some very good news for you. MarkdownMail is now available for the iPad.

The iPad version works much like the iPhone version that I mentioned earlier. From the makers of MarkdownMail:

MarkdownMail is the easiest way to compose and send HTML emails on your iPhone or iPod touch. Based around John Gruber’s popular Markdown markup syntax, you can now send emails with bold text, italics, bulleted lists and more. MarkdownMail will convert your Markdown formatted messages into an HTML message that you can send to your friends, family or colleagues.

Being able to send HTML emails is nice, I suppose, but MarkdownMail has another feature that I think is game changing for anyone who writes web content in Markdown.

A Markdown workflow recipe for blogging on the iPad

Ingredients

Directions

Step 1: Compose your blog draft in Simplenote. Or, if you like to write in Notational Velocity like me, it’s likely that your draft is already in Simplenote. In any case, I recommend using Simplenote as a staging spot for blog posts-to-be.

Step 2 (optional): Take advantage of TextExpander snippets as you write. Here are a few iPad-specific snippets I use like crazy:

Snippet Expands to
.h #
..h ##
.b *

Why do I use these snippets? On the iPad, symbols like # and * reside on what I call the “tertiary keyboard” of the iPad. They are two levels away from the main keyboard, and hunting them down constantly can really bog you down while writing and outlining.

Step 3: Once you're happy with your Markdown draft, copy all of the text in Simplenote.

Step 4: Open MarkdownMail, and paste. This is where the magic happens. MarkdownMail has a “Copy HTML to clipboard” feature that does just that. It puts the actual converted HTML code on your iPad clipboard.

Step 5: Paste the HTML code into the WordPress app. Now, you can title it, save as draft, or publish right away.

I followed these steps to put this very post into WordPress as a draft. (I inserted the screen shots later.)

Again, why this is awesome

John Gruber obviously created Markdown long before anyone outside of Apple dreamed of mobile apps, but it really is the ideal web-writing tool for the iPad. Markdown greatly simplifies the syntax required for creating HTML documents, and now it can be combined with the power of Simplenote sync, TextExpander automation, and MarkdownMail.

You now have everything you need to efficiently write HTML content on the iPad. Put another one in the “content creation” column.

Special thanks to MacSparky for making me aware of the iPad version of MarkdownMail!