Best markdown editor for Android – LightPaper
When I first started using it, I did manage to lose some work a couple of times by not saving it before I did something else with it. Also occasionally I find that there is some weird behaviour going on that I still have to get to the bottom of. For example at the moment I have added an extra paragraph of some text and when I swipe across from the right to the left on the screen to see the HTML preview version of the text, the text and I’ve just put in is not there?
Going back to other things that I like about this, there are keys that I can use to move through the text either one letter or one word at a time. I am finding this extra functionality to be very useful as sometimes with the Android text I do find it difficult on the small screen to place the cursor exactly where I want it.
There is also what they call a “Distraction Free Mode” and what this does is to only show the paragraph that you are working on. There is an option within the settings which will allow you to go full screen while in this mode. This mode could be useful if you are a person who is easily distracted like dogs can be when you throw a ball.
So what is the application like when in use
By tapping on the icon in the top left-hand corner you get to the area where you can get to files you have already worked on. Files can be held locally or they can be synchronised with Dropbox. The Dropbox synchronisation is very useful as it is quite likely that you will be wanting to get at files that you have created while out and about and you will want to do further work on back at the desktop computer.
When you tap on the plus icon he will have an option to create a new document or to create a new folder. Let’s start by creating a new document by typing in the name of the document, tap on the button with a checkmark to say okay and the document is created. We can start working on the document by tapping on the bit of the empty space that we can see over on the right-hand side. Most likely when you begin a document you will create a header and I have started by putting in the two # hash symbols for the header. I can then start typing or dictating the text.
I am finding that this application works best when used in portrait mode. This is because when I put it into landscape mode and I am typing or dictating, I don’t get to see the actual words appearing on the screen. This could possibly be due to the fact on using the Swiftkey keyboard and it may be different when using a standard Android keyboard. Another possibility is that the application is designed for a larger tablet such as the Nexus 7. In any case, there is no way that I’m going to give up the Swiftkey keyboard, it is far too useful. In Portrait mode you get to see all you need to see.
Let’s put in a link with the button that gives you the link syntax, what this does is to give you the square brackets followed by a set of round brackets and is for a standard type of link in markdown. My preferred way of doing links with markdown is to use reference markdown and there are also keys as I can use to easily let me do this.
If I want to put images into a document using the markdown syntax because perhaps I want to send it directly to a blog then there is a button in the extra row of keys at the top of the screen for this purpose. It is possible to connect up this application to any of your WordPress blogs, Scriptogr.am and Tumbler so this could be very useful if you want to do some blogging on the go.
We have got other useful facilities in there, such as a spellchecker which can be enabled or disabled. There is a style chooser and you can choose between a few different fonts, some different themes and a number of different font sizes. I quite like the solarised light theme that is available.
The NoStylus verdict on Lightpaper Android markdown text editor
When I first started looking for markdown text editors for Android I was not too impressed with what I found. Now that I have Lightpaper and also the application draft has been improved I am quite happy with what I can do writing with Android on my Galaxy S3. I really would like to try this application on a larger Android device such as the Nexus 7 so that I could see how the keyboard works as in whether I would get all of the extra rows of buttons and keys available. In any case when I’m using this in portrait mode I can do what I need to do whether I am typing in using the Swiftkey keyboard or dictating. I have also looked at an application called Markdrop, which is far simpler in terms of what it can do but it is also quite useful to have available.
