I’m in the middle of a mini screencast series on how I write using Markdown in Notational Velocity.1
The first part ended up being very basic. If you are already using Notational Velocity and Markdown to create HTML, this really isn’t for you. It’s for all your internet pals who are Markdown-curious, but feel intimidated by it – for whatever reason.
I cover the basics:
- Font formatting: bold and italics
- Hyperlinks
- Headings
- Bullets
- Footnotes
- How to copy the HTML from Notational Velocity (nvALT)
In the next part, I plan to talk about other tools I use to make writing in Markdown even faster. Teaser: It’ll involve TextExpander, LaunchBar, and TextMate.
By the way, if there are any other topics I’ve written about that you would like to see in a screencast format, let me know. I can’t guarantee I’ll do it, but I’m looking for ideas.
- Somehow screencasting about writing seems like a more tenable use of my time than writing about writing. ↩
{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }
Hey, is that nvALT2? Where can I get it?
Good eyes. Yeah, I haphazardly ended up with a beta copy via Brett. I remembered I was using it about halfway through recording, so I just went with it. I really like it. Hopefully it’ll be available to everyone soon.
Really great explanations + viewable on iPhone = amazing
Can’t wait for the next episode!
This is great, Eddie! I’m definitely going to pass this along to my friends intimidated by markdown… You demystify it awfully efficiently!
OK. Now I’m not supposed to talk about it ;) me happy :)
By the way, you should have these videos available in iTunes (as a podcast). Great job!
Ok, now I get it! I’ve been hearing alot about NV and Markdown/Multi Markdown from David Sparks on MacPowers Users podcast and his MacSparky blog and was thinking about giving it a try but now I definitely will. Very informative video. Thanks
Thank you, Alison. My primary motivation for making that video was to introduce people to Markdown and show them just how easy it is. We live in an extraordinary time when anyone can write and express themselves. Free tools like Notational Velocity and Markdown make it even easier.
At the risk of sounding grandiose, I believe this is the re-invention of the word processor for the web age.
Great post Eddie,
Even though I have been using NV and MultiMarkdown for a while now, it is always good to see a really elegant summary. When I talk about it now, **this** is the place I will recommend people to visit to get a good overview.
I am stuck with Windows XP (2011…hello???) at work. Any knowledge on Windows MultiMarkdown editors?
-Niv
I’ve been using Notepad++. I added a Markdown syntax highlighting definition I got somewhere that’s not perfect, but helps. Notepad++ has a plugin NppExec that lets you run commands that I have several of to process the Markdown into various forms. It’s fine for a coder, but for more writing, there’s WriteMonkey. You can easily add custom CSS for the HTML. I don’t recall if it can use MultiMarkdown.
As far as Notational Velocity, I’ve only found CintaNotes for Windows so far. It doesn’t do any Markdown, but otherwise works very similarly to NV.
**Really** like that post. Very useful for me as a recent convert to MarkDown. If you were to do a follow up it’s be great if you could cover images and how to integrate markdown into email – since those are the two I fall down on most often.
Thank you for the clear and detailed overview. It’s given me what I need to get started. One question: how do you create a single line break (without a gap) between lines? Hitting a return in nvALT doesn’t create a new line in the markdown preview.
That’s because Markdown creates a new paragraph for each line. One thing you can do is enclose the text in div tags. This is sort of a classic problem with writing in HTML in general.
In multimarkdown, inserting a newline instead of a new paragraph can be accomplished by ending a line with two spaces and a return.
I’m very new to Markdown. Thank you so much for this explanation. Trust me, it has helpd, a lot!
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