In this, the penultimate post in my Journey to Markdown series, I’m going to get into how Markdown integrated with my writing workflow, and how I use the apps I’ve mentioned as part of my writing workflow now that Markdown is a part of it.
My Mac Workflow
I’m writing this piece in Byword, which has become my application of choice when it comes to writing for the online platform. What I did before was either write the article in nvALT or in Scrivener in plain text and then send it to my WordPress back end for the “HTMLifying” process. Now I am able to write the piece on my Mac in Markdown using Byword, copy the HTML that Byword transcribes from a Markdown export into the WordPress back end and then fine-tune it from there.
I’ve prtty much incorporated all of the basic Markdown syntax into my articles, and actually avoid embedding images in my posts altogether because of my lack of proficiency (or foresight) in embedding images in Markdown. Only when absolutely necessary do I add images to my posts, and still do it in WordPress once I’ve put the article in there from Byword.
My iPad Workflow
For the longest time I didn’t do any online writing on my iPad. Then I started to use Simplenote. With that app, I’d write in plain text and then wouldn’t do much more with it until I got on my Mac at home so I could bring it into WordPress. The WordPress app on the iPad was terrible for a long time, so I never bothered to use it.
BlogPress was an improvement for a while, allowing me to actually write entirely for the online audience on my iPad. But then it started crashing, so I was back to my original workflow – which was very tedious. So much so that I eventually stopped using my iPad for writing for a spell.
Then Writing Kit came along and made the iPad a viable option for online writing again.
Now, I write up my posts on the iPad in Markdown using Writing Kit, copy them to the newly-improved WordPress app and either publish or save the draft right from my iPad. If I feel that the post isn’t ready for WordPress yet, I’ll send the post to OmniFocus (which Writing Kit has so kindly added support for) so that I can keep it out of mind but on my radar nonetheless. This is especially helpful if I have some ideas for a post and want to keep tabs on those for a later date.
My iPhone Workflow
Not using Markdown on the iPhone…yet. And with Siri now at my command, I don’t know if I ever will need to.
Final Thoughts on Workflow
I can say without a doubt that by adding Markdown to my language set that my workflow has sped up considerably. I haven’t added any additional steps that cause more lag than save time, and Markdown is a much quicker syntax to work with than HTML. I can write much more efficiently and effectively with Markdown as part of my routine than I’ve been able to before. As a result, my work flows better.
Next week I’ll wrap up my journey to Markdown by summarizing my results. The overall journey won’t necessarily end next week but, rather, I’ll let you know how much further I plan to go.