Writing Notes in Markdown: A Primer - Effective Remote Work

Markdown is commonly used in many note-taking apps. How do you use it? Why is Markdown a good choice for your note system? We answer these questions and more in today's video.
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[@MarcMcRae]

Updated and nicely tied together a LOT of things for me. Really "good to know" info. So far this has been THE best intro to markdown. Thanks for sharing!

[@damonpthomas]

Another useful tip is to use two equal signs to highlight text ==like this==. I'm a beginner with markdown (thanks to Obsidian) so I'm not sure if there's a way to change the highlight colour. Would be great if so!

[@EffectiveCo]

Ah yes you can do this in Obsidian. I didn’t cover this bit because it’s one relevant to flavors of Markdown. Obsidian uses ==, Bear uses ::, and other flavors don’t even allow it. But good tip for Obsidian nonetheless!

[@micheltum]

You may change the highlighting color in Obsidian by changing the CSS. It will display that color as long as it is in the CSS file. I don't know if it is possible to have more than one color at a time, maybe there is.

[@chessgo5028]

this video Is just what I was looking for !!! subscribed.

[@Elemons1000]

Pound sign? I'm in the UK so I got a bit confused when I saw the 'hash' or 'number' sign #

[@EffectiveCo]

Oh sorry about that! It would be the hash/number sign for those outside of the US. :)

[@mikethelma]

WOW! I paused for a moment but did not think much of it when Justin called it a "pound sign" since I've always called it that. Since you brought it up, I went to the dictionary.com site www.dictionary.com/e/octothorpe/ and found that its actual name is "octothorpe" ... which is just too stupid to remember! LOL :) But this site has an interesting history of the sign and why it was called a "pound sign". I know, I ought to have something better to do, but what the hay? :)

[@1fan-of-everyone]

Markdown is an interesting subject. Discord introduced me causing a study flurry to assemble a cheat sheet. Your summery is fair. I began to notice missing info when you got into links. New Sub! #1 FAN!

[@EffectiveCo]

So glad this was helpful!

[@Jaszunai]

What's a good software for just quickly opening up a markdown file?

[@EffectiveCo]

Notepad on Windows, BBEdit free on Mac. Markdown is simply a plain text file, so any plain text editor will do.

[@FernandoGonzalez-ir1bx]

Great job! Now i'm able to make presentations with markdown.

[@EffectiveCo]

That’s a wonderful feature in Obsidian!

[@ibgeorgeb]

I appreciate your straightforward explanation. I’m hearing impaired and your voice was understandable. I Thank you.

[@EffectiveCo]

Glad it was helpful!

[@digitalandhandmadeartanime3359]

Loved the way explain things. its simple and neat

[@EffectiveCo]

Thanks a lot 😊

[@jdcv17]

I wish there's a bbcode to markdown converter. I'd have to learn markdown to convert and move some of my stuff that I did with bbcode to static pages.

[@EffectiveCo]

If you have some developer chops, you could use one of the many NPM packages or Ruby gems out there to convert BBCode to Markdown in static files.

[@KirbyFerguson]

Excellent walk through and refresher.

[@EffectiveCo]

Glad this was helpful!

[@ProductivePM]

Great job, I really learned quite a lot. Thank you!

[@EffectiveCo]

I’m glad it helped!

[@bkpaf21]

Great video, quick question: how did you present the note, was it in obsidian and if so is that a plugin, or was it a different app and could you recommend one?

[@EffectiveCo]

Yes this was the Presentation Mode plugin in Obsidian. It’s been fun to use it for these videos.

[@LessonsinHistory]

It's certainly faster for input, but i disagree at 13:36, it's just so ugly if left alone. Obsidian has the preview vs editor mode but they are exclusive viewing expereinces. It would be nice, and i believe it is coming later on the roadmap that you instantly see the preview with this rather than see the syntax **bold**. Not having to be able to parse through the formatting language surely would be better

[@EffectiveCo]

That’s a totally fair opinion! Maybe I’ve been looking at it so long that it doesn’t bother me at all...

[@randomnoises1067]

Typora has that option btw if you're not aware already. You can basically edit in the preview mode directly plus a source code view. I sort of like Obsidian's locked preview mode though, it decreases the changes of making accidental errors imo

[@damonpthomas]

@@randomnoises1067 I believe this is on the Obsidian roadmap (they actually call out Typora's method as what Obsidian will eventually look like)

[@AyomideAdebayo]

It’s “ugly” because you’re comparing it to plaintext, and not to the HTML people had to do before Markdown was created. Also in practice (as someone who writes almost entirely in Markdown) it’s still actually clear to read because you’re not actually formatting every other word. I only use preview mode to be sure it looks like I want.

[@mikethelma]

@@EffectiveCo "... the Matrix is too large for translators to show everything. I am used to it. I now only see "blond", "brunet". etc." -- Cypher (The Matrix)

[@accentontheoff]

Apologies for going in the other direction, but could you suggest a few text editors that are NOT markdown. Text editors for those who may not be writing for the web or who are writing for the web but using other methods. You did say Evernote and Notion but they are so much more than text editors right? It does seem that right now there’s more markdown editors than otherwise. Apologies again. And thanks.

[@kirk0831]

Microsoft Word?

[@EffectiveCo]

It depends on what you need. If you want plaintext, use something like BBEdit (which now has a free version) on Mac or Sublime Text on Windows. For rich text, you're largely going to be stuck in Word or TextEdit unless you jump to something more robust like Evernote or Notion.

[@accentontheoff]

@@EffectiveCo Yes, talking about richtext. Basically something with some kind of formatting. As a writer I need a bare minimum of emphasis through things like bold, underline, etc. Looks like we don't have much choice. Anyways, thanks for replying :)

[@EffectiveCo]

You’re welcome. If I come across something soon I’ll respond back.

[@accentontheoff]

Effective Remote Work Cheers!

[@minachung403]

Your video was so helpful, thank you so much 🥰🥰

[@EffectiveCo]

I'm so glad!

[@BitterMonday]

Hi, what font did you use on that presentation?

[@EffectiveCo]

It's the default font in Obsidian's light mode. Unfortunately I'm not sure what it is exactly!

[@TheRemyRomano]

Ref style like is awesome

[@EffectiveCo]

For sho'

[@aathifanpudeen]

Can you do a video on how to use pandoc and latex to convert markdown to pdfs

[@EffectiveCo]

I’ll add it to the list of possibilities!

[@aathifanpudeen]

@@EffectiveCo thanks a lot . If I haven't mentioned it before really love your work

[@asimssheikh]

Thankyou, very informative and insightful video.

[@EffectiveCo]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@kirk0831]

Nice work. Keep posting like this.

[@EffectiveCo]

Thanks much!

[@genkiferal7178]

I am merely preparing for the POSSIBILITY of working remotely...it may never happen. Would love to know about affordability. I just set up the free version of NextCloud and already goofed by choosing a provider that will be too costly if I choose the paid-for version (Woelkli). I also just set up SyncThing, but find it rather confusing and am getting annoyed with having to look at which updated file is which. But, it beats having nothing. Would be interested in future-proofing, growing ideas. I am sick of having to relearn so many danged things. Also, I use Linux and that just makes things even harder. I am spending more time learning to use tools than actually working

[@EffectiveCo]

Thanks for the suggestions!

[@markprostars]

amazing

[@EffectiveCo]

Thanks so much for the kind words!

[@tausifmulla]

Thanks for this informative video.

[@EffectiveCo]

You’re welcome!

[@BasedPureblood]

KZbin has Markdown!! _Bold_ *Italic*

[@EffectiveCo]

😮 I had *no* idea.

[@finbar000]

Hello Justin Appreciate the hard work. Been using Drafts and wanted to give 1Writer a go. What about Wiki links? Is it [[]]? Can you search by using [[s:text]]. Cheers

[@EffectiveCo]

I'm not sure about Drafts wiki links, but I do know you can with Obsidian by just typing some words in the wiki link brackets.

[@finbar000]

@@EffectiveCo thanks for getting back to me. I tried and it worked. Really hoping Obsidian gets mobile app soon

[@DionV]

@@finbar000 Obsidian mobile apps are in private beta. If you upgrade to one of the paid tiers (Catalyst?) you can get access to the mobile app through their Discord server. So far the mobile apps are good, but they are limited by the mobile operating system. For example, I can’t point iOS or Android to my Google Drive-stored vault at this point. So, I have three different vaults at the moment. But, I’m only just getting started.

[@monicamunoz8335]

I can make to-do lists??

[@EffectiveCo]

You can add todos using the markdown syntax "- [ ]" though it's a bit cludgy and not supported across all Markdown editors.

[@mikethelma]

@@EffectiveCo Yes it is, but it is not awful. You just have to type it once, then the next item in the list has the box already prepended.

[@d6h597]

Thank you for the good explanation

[@russellabraham9208]

Completely disagree about writing in HTML. Text editors like VS Code auto complete almost everything, and if it doesn't then it probably has emmet. I still like markdown though, much easier to write nice looking docs. Thanks!

[@EffectiveCo]

I think writing HTML for coding is fine with Emmet and the like, but it's an entirely different thought process when writing for writing's sake. If I had to work through divs, p, spans, strong, and all the HTML structure for every post I write, I likely never would write it.

[@Eric-rf6te]

# This is a comment Thank you for the __great__ presentation. I know how to write *markdown* now!

[@EffectiveCo]

😁

[@finanzieron]

I didn't think it was too clear. A bit convoluted.

[@EffectiveCo]

Sorry to hear that. Where could we improve?

[@mikethelma]

@@EffectiveCo I found it clear enough. It would have been even more clear had you worked in an app with the rendering shown, rather than power point type slides.. OTOH, what you are describing is at least a LITTLE complex ... because it just IS. Not much you can do about that.

[@genkiferal7178]

you really needed more visuals, dude....more examples of what you were explaining. Also, I had hoped you'd cover the NOTE-TAKING aspect, but you only mention this at 13 minutes into the video.

[@EffectiveCo]

I do have a ton of videos on note-taking on the channel, so feel free to check those out! This was meant to be a quick primer on Markdown. Sorry if it didn't deliver!

[@25maxman]

**bold** *bold*

[@generalmalaise2930]

**bold**