Chastity’s Review of Markdown

In my own words, I would like to describe a bit about Markdown and how it changed my life as a Creative Writer. Markdown is a simple replacement for HTML when you need basic elements like headings, links, bold, and italics. There are many simple guides on it. I learned all about it by reading the Markdown Guide.

On that site, there are many tools which I have found helpful. I want to list my top two favorite markdown writing applications

SimpleNote is the tool I have used the most to quickly write my school assignment. It has two features that really help me. First, I have it installed on Windows, my iPhone, and an Android phone I use at work. It syncs anything I write on one device with all the others because I am logged into my account. It is super convenient because I spend so much time away from home that I can start writing something on my PC at home and then finish it on my lunch break at Walmart from my phone. Another thing that Simplenote does is tell me the word count of any note. This is important when an assignment in my Creative Writing course requires a minimum or maximum word count that I need to meet. For these reasons, a lot of the time I write my documents in Simplenote and then just copy them into Microsoft word after I have formatted them in Markdown through Simplenote.

Another app that is similar is called Joplin. This app is slightly different in that it does not automatically sync to the internet like Simplenote does by default. It has options for syncing through third party services, but I have no need of that because that’s what I use Simplenote for. Rather, the purpose of Joplin is that it is capable of working without an internet connection. I have only started using it recently but it has the ability to create multiple notebooks which work a little bit like folders in a file system of a computer. This means it is capable of being used for even greater organization than is currently capable by using Simplenote alone. It has features for importing and exporting notes so that they can be backed up regularly if you don’t feel like syncing them automatically.

Most importantly, both Simplenote and Joplin support Markdown. However, even aside from that, they are valuable note taking tools. If you ever need to write something down quickly, these apps can help you out. I find them helpful particularly because I can make a new note and then type something down without having to choose what to name a text file like I would if I was creating one in notepad.