Typora – Yet another Markdown Editor

Trying out a new text editor

The application Typora seems to work quite well, so far. I put in the markdown syntax for a level II header and it has changed it automatically in the view mode as soon as I went down to the next paragraph. I’m wondering how it compares with Byword and that is rather going to depend upon whether there is a version of the application to work on the iOS devices.

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Too many text editors

It seems I am a bit of a sucker for text editors and I can’t resist getting a new one. This one is okay but I’m wondering what is going to like if I want to change a level II header into something different. The next thing to try to see how it looks with adding a link and also how to add bold text.

It’s very easy to change the level of a heading. I only have to hit command +02 get the heading to a paragraph level. if I want to turn any paragraph into a heading all I have to use is Command plus the number. I thought it was going to be difficult because I can’t see the hashtags for the syntax of the headings in the view. It really didn’t matter at all on account of having the quick keyboard shortcuts. As you might expect, using command + B gave me the bold text.

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I can see that the best way to work with this would be to write out everything as plaintext and not to put in the header syntax until I finished doing all the writing. It would just be a simple case of putting the cursor into the paragraph I needed to change into a header and using the keyboard shortcut.

Adding links

Adding a link in Typora is really easy, all you have to do is to select the words for the link and use the keyboard shortcut. In this case the keyboard shortcut is Option, Command + A. What this does is to put the square brackets around the words you have selected and it puts the round brackets just afterwards. You move the cursor in between the round brackets and add your link URL. As soon as you move the cursor out of that paragraph the view changes to show it as a WYSIWYG, What You See Is What You Get view of your text. I have tried adding a reference link and it doesn’t seem anywhere near as easy as doing a normal in-line link. With the way the application works there is not much point using the reference link anyway.

Adding images

Once again, you just use a keyboard shortcut and you get the spaces for adding the URL for the image. As soon as you filled in the details the image appears in your view of the document. In between the brackets you put the name of the image, in between the round brackets goes the image URL and you can also add a title if you wish. It looks a bit strange when you first to do this but after you click away from the image syntax it all looks okay.

Adding Lists

  • Just put in the asterisk and the space and start typing and there’s you list.
  • Hit return to make another line in the list. No Problem
  • Hit return twice to finish the list and go back to paragraph text
  • numbered lists are just as easy to make.
  • Loving it.

Mac20Q Verdict

I like so far of this beta version of a markdown editor. It looks like there is a Windows version of it, which is good because there doesn’t seem to be so many Windows markdown editors. Getting the text out of the editor is simple enough.You do have to remember to select all of the text you want to export out before you use the menu or the shortcut key to get the text out either as markdown or as HTML code.

  • ​As a quick and dirty markdown editor
  • I have to say that I really like it.
  • You have themes giving you different views of your document
  • There are also Task Lists available in the application. Converts to a normal list in straight markdown and html

The application could still do with a little bit of polishing and the addition of things like a word count would be good. It does have good facilities for making your way around the text. In the menu bar there is a drop-down outline so you can get to a specific part of your text quickly from the top of the application. I think I will be sticking with the Markdown editors I already have but I will keep my eye out to see how this one improves over time.

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