2 Open Source Markdown Editors

This post was first published, in a slightly different form, at Opensource.com and appears here via a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International License.

I do most of my writing in a text editor and format it with Markdown — articles, essays, blog posts, ebooks, and much more. I’m not the only one, either. Not only do countless people write with Markdown, but there are also more than a few publishing tools built around it.

Who’d have thought that a simple way to format web documents created by John Gruber and the late Aaron Schwartz would become so popular?

While most of my writing takes place in a text editor, I can understand the appeal of a dedicated Markdown editor. You get quick access to formatting, you can easily convert your documents to other formats, and you can get an instant preview.

If you’re thinking about going Markdown and are looking for a dedicated editor, here are two open source options for your writing pleasure.

Abricotine

If you like your Markdown editors simple, you’ll like Abricotine. But don’t let its simplicity fool you; Abricotine packs quite a punch.

Like any other editor, you can enter formatting by hand or use the Format or Insert menus. Abricotine also has a menu for inserting a GitHub Flavored Markdown table. There are 16 pre-packaged table formats, and you can add rows or columns as you need them. If the tables are looking a bit messy, you can pretty them up by pressing Ctrl+Shift+B.

Abricotine can automatically display images, links, and math. You can turn all that off if you want to. The editor is, however, limited to exporting documents as HTML.

Here’s a shot of an article being edited in Abricotine:

Remarkable

Remarkable lies somewhere between Ghostwriter and Abricotine or Mark Text. It has that two-paned interface, but with a slightly more modern look. And it has a few useful features.

The first thing you notice about Remarkable is its Material Design-inspired look and feel. It’s not for everyone, and I’ll be honest: It took me a little while to get used to it. Once you do, it’s easy to use.

You get quick access to formatting from the toolbar and the menus. You can also change the preview pane’s style using one of 11 built-in Cascading Style Sheets or by creating one of your own.

Remarkable’s export options are limited — you can export your work only as HTML or PDF files. You can, however, copy an entire document or a selected portion as HTML, which you can paste into another document or editor.

Here’s an essay being edited in Remarkable:

— Scott Nesbitt