Recommendations for Markdown editors for Windows and Mac
April 22, 2019 8:44 AM   Subscribe

After repeated problems with note taking in OneNote, Word, and Email, now I take most of my notes in plain text. I'd like to try out taking notes that are basically plain text but with a little Markdown thrown in for headings and lists. But for work I switch constantly between Windows and Mac and often open files I created on Windows on Mac the next day, so if I'm going to do this I need editors for both platforms (even if it's a different editor on each).

Ideally these programs would give me formatting instantly: e.g., when I type "# This is a header" and hit Enter it's immediately formatted rather than waiting for me to tell the program "okay format this document."

Must be free for commercial use.

Bonus points for recommendations for iOS and Android editors as well.
posted by Tehhund to Computers & Internet (13 answers total) 6 users marked this as a favorite
 
You might try Boostnote. It's open source and runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux (I use it on a Mac). The UI is decent, though like many open source projects not the most polished. It used to have a mobile port but it fell behind or had code quality issues so they've shuttered that, though they claim it will come back to mobile in the future.

My general impression of it is pretty good, and it's free so there's no harm checking it out.
posted by tocts at 8:56 AM on April 22, 2019


I don't use Windows, but on Mac I like FSNotes and have heard good things about Marked.

This is a long list of iOS editors broken out by feature. If you filter on Desktop app and Markdown support you'll get a much shorter list. On that list, I recognize iA Writer, Ulysses and Bear.
posted by caek at 9:36 AM on April 22, 2019


Macdown, or maybe Atom with Markdown packages if you want a sidebar where you can see folders/files.
posted by neushoorn at 10:00 AM on April 22, 2019 [1 favorite]


This might be a heavy suggestion but Visual Studio Code is free and cross-platform and does have Markdown support. This includes side by side windows where you can see a live dynamic rendering of your MarkDown text.
posted by mmascolino at 10:25 AM on April 22, 2019 [1 favorite]


Marked isn't an editor, it's a file processor, so that won't do you much good.

Bear and Ulysses both have proprietary file-storage schemes, which would make cross-compatibility a problem, and (to my mind) undermines the point of using Markdown in the first place.

There are some markdown editors that will give you syntax highlighting so your text is easier to scan, but don't really provide on-the-fly formatting (Atom falls in this category). Most that do have on-the-fly formatting use side-by-side views, as with Macdown. I've only seen a handful that put everything in the same pane.

You might check out Dillinger, which runs in your browser but can use Dropbox or other cloud storage targets.
posted by adamrice at 11:15 AM on April 22, 2019 [2 favorites]


Sublime Text is an editor for coding but it is on both platforms and has lots of fun things to make writing easier and you can also search all your text files. They have nag-centric unlimited trial.
posted by shothotbot at 11:26 AM on April 22, 2019


My go-to editor is still Vim, after all these years.

It has a learning curve, but it runs on basically every OS you'd ever care to use, it's lightweight, it's fast, it's free, and it's super-powerful. If you're going to use it, there's a Vim tutor that ships with it -- it'll show you the basics.
posted by vitout at 12:10 PM on April 22, 2019


Org mode? Other than using its own lightweight markup syntax (not Markdown) it appears to be what you're looking for.
Previously on the blue.
posted by Bangaioh at 12:48 PM on April 22, 2019


Would StackEdit work? Runs in a browser and has side-by-side editor and preview panels.
posted by clavicle at 2:31 PM on April 22, 2019


On the Mac, I'm a fan of Typora, and I see they have a Windows version too. If you need it for coding, it's great, but even if not, it's a nice little program.
posted by Leontine at 4:00 PM on April 22, 2019


I don't understand the need for seeing the formatting right away (that's what the markup symbols are for), but any text editor worth its salt these days has syntax highlighting and other support for Markdown, whether natively or via plugins. VSCode, or its non-Microsofted, entirely open-source sister VSCodium, has it, as does Sublime Text, Vim, and most others.

I have written prose in all of these editors, using Pandoc for final output. They all work just fine, and are all cross-platform.

The only thing you'll need to worry about round-tripping between Mac and Windows is line endings...Mac, Windows and Linux all have different line ending conventions. Of course, the major editors will help you move between them, but you need to be aware.
posted by lhauser at 7:01 PM on April 22, 2019


I don't know how nerdy you are, but if your'e trending towards plain text note taking you're partway there already.

OrgMode is an Emacs thing. Emacs is like witchcraft, but if you give it a little time it might grow on you, especially given the additional features of OrgMode (ie, it can gin up a list of things marked as to-do from across all my orgmode files, etc) -- all of which are based on plain text files.

Versions of emacs exist for everything, including & especially Mac and Windows.
posted by uberchet at 6:43 AM on April 23, 2019


For Mac, Highland.

For both, Writer, which is web-based so works on anything that connects to the web.

Each has a free mode and a pro mode, but Markdown works in the free modes.
posted by dobbs at 8:00 AM on April 29, 2019


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