A Markdown Story

It’s 2014

All my colleagues are writing their Bachelor’s Degree paper in LaTeX¹. Or MSWord… 🤮

I’m doing it in Markdown, mostly because LaTeX looks too verbose for me. And I’m not that smart anyway.

I was never the brightest bulb in the chandelier, to begin with.

So, back to LaTeX: too verbose, too many keywords.

Looks like the type of thing highly skilled academics use to flex their look-at-how-many-format-specifiers-I-can-pull-from-memory muscles.

Plus, I already know Markdown². I’m not going to learn LaTeX right now, so on we go.

I write my paper.

I turn it in.

Nobody asks for the source.

The result looks the same as my colleagues’ papers, authored in LaTeX. I actually think it looks nicer, since I’m not locked into LaTeX’s default serif

Fast-forward to 2020

I’m still using Markdown. Many of my colleagues also had to learn Markdown for work. None of them use LaTeX 🙃

I use Markdown on a daily basis. This article was written in Markdown.

Here’s what I use it for

I write articles in Markdown.
I take most of my notes in Markdown.
I write documentation in Markdown.
I even write emails in Markdown then use a browser extension to compile it to Rich Text.

Markdown is suitable for academic writing as well. I would love to read some of my teachers’ papers and publications in Markdown. Especially now that I’ve grown older and can understand one or two things.

I’d like to thank my Uni teachers for the tough love which came in the form of LaTeX — it’s what pushed me to look for alternatives.

Some useful links

What editor do I personally use? I’ve been using IAWriter for the past 4 years.

Here’s their Markdown Guide

Curious about this article’s source?

Click here to expand the source

# A Markdown story

## It's 2014

All my colleagues are writing their Bachelor's Degree paper in LaTeX[^1]. Or MSWord... 🤮

I'm doing it in Markdown, mostly because LaTeX looks too verbose for me. And I'm not that smart anyway.

*I was never the brightest bulb in the chandelier, to begin with.*

So, back to LaTeX: too verbose, too many keywords.

Looks like the type of thing highly skilled academics use to flex their **look-at-how-many-format-specifiers-I-can-pull-from-memory** muscles.

Plus, I already know Markdown[^2]. I'm not going to learn LaTeX right now, so on we go.

I write my paper.

I turn it in.

Nobody asks for the source.

The result looks the same as my colleagues' papers, authored in LaTeX. I actually think it looks nicer, since I'm not locked into LaTeX's default serif


## Fast-forward to 2020

I'm still using Markdown. Many of my colleagues also had to learn Markdown for work. None of them use LaTeX 🙃

I use Markdown on a daily basis. This article was written in Markdown.

## Here's what I use it for

- I write articles in Markdown.
- I take most of my notes in Markdown.
- I write documentation in Markdown.
- I even write emails in Markdown then use a browser extension to compile it to Rich Text.

Markdown is suitable for academic writing as well. I would love to read some of my teachers' papers and publications in Markdown. Especially now that I've grown older and can understand one or two things.

I'd like to thank my Uni teachers for the tough love which came in the form of LaTeX — it's what pushed me to look for alternatives.

## Some useful links
- [Intro to Markdown for academics](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpAJMSS8pvs)
- [Syntax Doc](https://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/syntax)
- [Markdown guide](https://www.markdownguide.org/extended-syntax)
- [LaTeX-ish math lib](https://katex.org/)
- [Notable Editor(supports KaTeX)](https://notable.md/)
- [Notable Markdown cheatsheet](https://cheatsheet.md/notable.pdf)

**[What editor do I personally use? I've been using IAWriter for the past 4 years.](https://ia.net/writer)**

**[Here's their Markdown Guide](https://ia.net/writer/support/general/markdown-guide)**

[^1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaTeX
[^2]: https://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/syntax